


Finding Home

by a_lonely_tatertot



Series: Gay Kotlc For Your Soul [9]
Category: Keeper of the Lost Cities Series - Shannon Messenger
Genre: Amy is a good sister, Based on a Tumblr Post, Bisexual Sophie Foster (Keeper of the Lost Cities), Canon Compliant, Everyone Is Gay, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Idiots in Love, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Linh has issues, M/M, Nightmares, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Canon, Post-Neverseen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pranking, Sophie Foster-centric, Sophie is sarcastic, i am holding myself back from crack ships for once in my life, kotlc - Freeform, the crew got jobs, the kids are not alright, they all do but like especially her, they deal with trauma, they get a mom figure, they go to college
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:14:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27331039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_lonely_tatertot/pseuds/a_lonely_tatertot
Summary: Sophie’s done fixing the people’s who came before her problems. She just wants to be no one again, so that’s what she does. The wars over, and finally, Sophie goes home.
Relationships: (eventual) Linh Song/Marella Redek, (eventual) Sophie Foster/Biana Vacker, Amy Foster & Sophie Foster (Keeper of the Lost Cities), Dex Dizznee & Keefe Sencen, Dex Dizznee & Sophie Foster & Biana Vacker, Keefe Sencen/Tam Song, Marella Redek & Keefe Sencen, Sophie Foster & Fitz Vacker, Sophie Foster/Linh Song, Tam Song & Fitz Vacker, fitz vacker/dex dizznee
Series: Gay Kotlc For Your Soul [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1795663
Comments: 44
Kudos: 23





	1. Back to the Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> This is based off of some headcannons by @linhonmon-roll on tumblr! Connor is an amazing writer and artist you should definitely check him out!! This was betaed by @bookwyrminspiration also on tumblr

Breathe.

“I’m not going to the upper levels,” the words spilled out of her mouth before she could stop them. Wide eyes stared at her from all around the room. She managed to count three breaths before the inevitable outburst.

“What?!” Grady shouted. _He’s not angry at you_ , she reminded herself, _just surprised_.

“Are you kidding?” Fitz whispered in confusion.

“You have to go to the upper levels. How else do you think you’ll become a part of society?” Alden said in his perfect no-need-to-worry voice that just made her want to smack him more.

“Sweetie I know it’ll be new and it’s normal to be scared-” Edaline started before she cut her off.

“I’m not scared okay? I don’t give a damn about being a part of society, and no I’m not kidding. This is my decision,” Sophie snapped. She was so done with this, with the stares, the names, being “Sophie Foster” and “human-raised”, a “war-hero;” she just wanted to be no one again. Maybe that made her a coward, but that’s who she was.

“Sophie, you’re not making sense,” Alden said, shaking his head, smiling that horrible venom-filled smile that barely contained the storm. Ever since she’d learned what Alden had done to his family she’d hated him almost as much as the Neverseen. Because he and Cassius were the same, but only one paid for it.

“Did I not speak clearly enough for you?” she asked, letting the hatred seep through her words and relished in the surprise on his face. “I am not going to the upper levels. I am not staying here either. Here I’m always going to be Sophie: the Moonlark, the leader of Team Valiant, the war hero. That’ll always be me. Here I’ll be stuck picking up the council’s mess for my entire life and I wanna be a kid still.” 

“So what do you plan on doing?” Biana spoke up after a silence.

 _Breathe._ “I’m going to go back to the Forbidden Cities, I’m gonna go back home.”

The uproar came back twice as loud as before. She was hit with hundreds of “no”s and “you can’t”s and the occasional “that’s illegal” but in between it all she locked eyes with Fitz. They didn’t need to be Cognates to understand what the other was thinking. She held his gaze and didn’t back down, this was her decision. Fitz smiled a bit at her stubbornness and nodded slightly. There wasn’t any danger from him, no “You can’t do this!” Nothing that the boy she used to know would do. 

_He’s different now,_ Sophie realized, how had she missed it? 

Her eyes drifted to Biana who was staring at the middle of the room with a blank expression. It was like she wasn’t there, lost somewhere in an ocean of thought. Finally, she looked up, “It’s your decision Fos-boss.”

A hundred times before those words had been directed at her. When deciding the fate of the world she was always plagued by uncertainty. But for once, it felt right; she was going home. Alden and her parents would say no as many times as they could to make her stay, and Fitz and Biana would try at some point, but one way or another she was leaving. She’d be back eventually, but for a while, she wouldn’t have to be Sophie Foster. 

The next night they had gathered everyone. Well, not everyone, just the people she cared about. Della and Livvy stood off to the side and Sophie smiled at their intertwined fingers. Maybe, just maybe they would be fine without her. Keefe stood quietly, his face blank, and it made her rethink everything. But Linh placed a steady hand on her shoulder and she was back. _Stay focused, don’t lose it,_ Sophie told herself sternly.

Grady and Edaline watched her, and she wondered how the house would feel without her. She took a breath and turned to Dex. He, out of all of them, wasn’t quite ready for her to leave.

“I can’t make you stay, can I?” Dex asked. His voice wavered slightly and there were tears in his eyes. There were tears in all their eyes.

Sophie shook her head slowly, “Not this time.” Everything was in place, all she had to do was just leave. That was the hardest part. To make it real.

“C’mon Soph, we did it; it’s over,” his eyes pleaded with her. “Let me come with you.”

They had all tried this. In different manors, in different ways, except for Linh. All she did was wrap her arms tightly around her and squeeze like she would never let go. Some part of her, buried under many many layers of protection, knew that if Linh tried she could make her stay. “That’s the problem Dex,” she had said this so many times before, “We are always going to be fixing things and we’re always going to be fighting, and I am always going to be Sophie Foster the human. I just want to be normal, for a few decades that’s all. I’ll be back soon, just make sure to keep these idiots in check while I’m gone alright? I gotta do this alone.” Her voice caught on the last word as it dawned on her that it might be the last thing she would say to them for a long time.

Dex wrapped his arms around her and squeezed, picking her up slightly. “I’ll miss you dumbass.”

She nodded mutely into his shoulder, “Likewise asshole.” _It’s time now_. She stepped away, flash drive in hand, because if Dex couldn’t join her he would always help her. And she loved him for that.

She turned away from them. She dug her heels into the dirt and braced herself. 

Three. Linh’s hand left her shoulder and she could feel all their eyes on her.

Two. It wasn’t the first time she had done this. It was teleporting. It was in her bones, literally.

One. Dex sucked in a breath in sync with her. The feeling of the tension running through her, becoming her, was intoxicating.

Zero. _There’s no looking back now_. And she ran. Her feet pounded the ground, her heart seemed to get faster with every stride. Dirt bounced with every thud of her shoes and she was free. And she jumped. 

Falling. Floating. Landing.

The stale, polluted, stiff air greeted Sophie on the other side and she had never been more relieved to step into a broken world. Her broken home. From now on, she’d be Amilia Ruewen and that was okay.

“The hell you doing here kid?” an old woman stared her down from behind the counter. She had wrinkles; on her face, on her apron, on her surprisingly steady hands that held an outrageous stack of plates. 

“Uh,” Amilia said nervously, “I need a job.”

The woman’s dark eyes narrowed further, “And you came here.” It wasn’t a question.

“That I did,” she muttered, it took every bit of her not to yank out her eyelashes.

With a huff, the woman set down the plates and walked out from behind the counter to march up to her. Amilia swallowed hard as the woman grabbed her hands from her sides. Her stark white hands seemed too pale and clean in the older woman’s dark hands. Amilia felt like she was under a microscope, like this woman could see every bit about her life as she stared at her hands. 

“You’ve worked, you’ve fought,” she said quietly, and dragged her eyes up to hers. “If you can clean you’ve got a job.”

Something exploded inside her and couldn’t’ve been happier. But wait, “No cooking?” Amilia called out as the woman went behind the counter again.

She chuckled lightly, “Clean first, then we’ll see. Chop chop, it’s almost time for the rush and these tables still haven’t been washed.”

“I don’t even know your name ma’am!” Amilia realized suddenly.

“You want a name, new girl?” she said. fixing her with another hard stare, “It’s Mari, you’ve got a real name?”

Amilia closed her mouth tightly, “It depends on your definition of real.”

Mari let out a harsh laugh, “Less philosophy more cleaning.”

A smile tugged at her mouth as she caught the wet rag the woman tossed her.

By the end of the day, she had been introduced to the regulars as nothing more than “the new girl”. She had scrubbed the counters over and over and Mari still managed to look unimpressed. Her sweeping skills got corrected and she became more familiar with the crappy sink than she would’ve liked. If you turned the old fashion handle too far right, then the water was basically boiling. If it was too far to the left, you got ice. There was one temperature that was decent and it was not moved from that spot. Amilia had found that out the hard way.

When Mari flipped the paper and probably homemade sign from “open” to “closed”, she flopped down on one of the booths. She was tired and wiped, but it was good because she was happy. She couldn’t have done this in the Lost Cities. And she wouldn’t have done this in San Francisco. Because this was normal, and no one knew her name, and that was the opposite of everything she once was. 

“You going home yet kid?” Mari asked from the lightswitch. She hadn’t thought about that, where she’d stay for the night. The booths weren’t optimal but they would work. 

“Can I stay here for the night?”

“In these shitty booths? Not happening,” Mari responded, shaking her head lightly. Amilia’s heart fell to her stomach and Mari sighed at her probably pitiful expression, “You really don’t have a place to stay?”

Amilia shook her head. “Fine, come on. You can borrow my couch for the night.”

The night turned into two, to a week, to a month and eventually Mari stopped asking about her family. 

“We’ve all got secrets,” she’d say, and Sophie wondered what her secrets were. Mari stopped asking about where she was going too. 

“This is a pit stop town,” she said one night while they put away dishes. 

“It wasn’t for you.”

“It’s where you find yourself when you’re young and get pulled back into when you’re old and broke.”

“Maybe I’m finding myself,” Amilia said only to get a hum in response. 

The words that Mari had said when she first met her came to Amilia often. Could she really tell what she had gone through? Or was it some weird old lady thing she did to freak her out?

There was one night where the nightmares came back worse than ever. She woke with sweat soaking her shirt and barely breathing. There was soft clinking in the kitchen that sounded too much like throwing stars. She remembered how they felt in her hands, drawing her own blood as she cleaned them. The sweet release as they left her hand to make a soft thunk in her target. How the rush it gave Sophie was always followed by a thick sense of dread. Because if it made her excited, how far away was she from the monsters she fought?

“I thought it’d be a rough night,” Mari said leaning on the doorway. 

“How did you know?”

“You’ve fought wars, those don’t go away easy. Come, I brought sugar, thought you would need it.” 

So she stumbled her way into the kitchen, tired and trying as hard as she could to keep her tears in. Mari had pancakes and shakes and had brought them out to the front porch. The best thing about this place was you could see every star in the sky. 

“How could you tell I’ve fought?” Sophie asked. The shake was shockingly cold against her hands and she tried to stop the shiver that ran through her. Mari rocked back quietly like they had all the time in the world to watch the stars move. 

“You have the look in your eyes.”

“But you looked at my hands, why?” Somehow, the shake tasted like mallowmelt. The kind that Edaline would make on bad nights before tucking her into bed. 

“Because your hands have been everywhere, they can tell stories if you let them.”

She decided not to ask any more questions, every answer would just be more confusing than the last. “And because they look like mine,” Mari finally said quietly.

“Oh.”

Mari didn’t look at her while she talked, “I saw a kid, who looked lost as hell with no immediate future, who had the hands of a fighter and eyes that held secrets. I thought I could do right by her.”

“I think you did,” Sophie said. For real this time, she wasn’t Amilia, she wasn’t trying to be her sister, for this night under the stars, she could be Sophie.

Over the year Amilia sometimes forgot about the demons that haunted her. Her past life- _lives_ . They were not her anymore. Days and hours where nothing other than the simple act of flipping pancakes and washing tables were her only thoughts. The town was small and out of the way. No glittery castles and fancy houses. Only small farms, sketchy strip malls, and _home_. There was only one hint that she wasn’t human, the small leaping crystal around her neck. 

_“For emergencies,” Biana had said_ _placing it gently around her neck._

_“And when you’re ready to come back home,” Fitz had whispered against the top of Sophie’s head._

So it stayed around Amilia’s neck, night and day; a reminder that she never had and never would belong. But she wanted to; she craved it. And Mari made her feel somewhat normal.

She wanted something human. Something reckless and young, that was the human she wanted. Sitting at her computer at the table in Mari’s old yellow motorhome that had housed her, she found herself looking at colleges. When she was younger “college” was an expectation, perfect grades, perfect words, perfect scores. _Sophie_ didn’t get to decide her future. To put it simply, it was never an option, her years were already filled with other’s ideas. But as Amilia clicked the tab for courses she realized that for once she controlled her next small forever. And in her next small forever she could just maybe belong.

Tables had been washed, the sun had gone down, and she had flipped the frayed sign. She had thought about it all day, the college she chose was far away and she didn’t know how to tell Mari this. The woman had become much closer to her than she thought she would. So as she grabbed her small packed duffle bag and held the door handle she tried to ignore the sharp pain that hit her chest. It only got worse as a soft voice came down the hall.

“Amilia?” Angie, Mari’s “friend”, whispered down the hall.

“Go back to bed, I’m just grabbing some things,” she said, wincing at how well she lied.

“That duffle says otherwise young lady,” Mari appeared seemingly out of thin air. Sophie knew this wasn’t going to end well, the feeling cemented itself as anger flared white hot in her stomach.

“‘Young lady’? Sorry did ‘kid’ just get thrown out the window? What are you now, my mom?” she snapped. 

Mari gapped at her for a second, “Oh I’m sorry, right now I guess I’m more of your mom than whoever had you and left you on your own!” 

“You don’t know nothing about them!” Sophie shouted. She didn’t mean too and she hated the way Mari flinched. But Sophie had pushed them away and that wasn’t their fault.

“The hell is this all about Amilia? You wanna go, _go. J_ ust don’t be a coward and leave without a goodbye.”

The tears fell fast down her face, because it was all too familiar. And she had never wanted to leave Mari like that. But she was angry, and that never ended well. “Fine, you want a goodbye? Goodbye.”

The door slammed hard behind her, and the rain soaked Sophie’s jacket mixing with her tears. It felt like a crappy hallmark movie from the early 2000s, but she was too angry to care; About the rain, about how muddy her shoes were, or how she didn’t really know where she was going.

The next morning she regretted everything. But by then that bridge was ashes in a stormy ocean; there was no going back. She moved forward because she had to.


	2. Runaway

A month and an accepted roommate later, she got to remember she was Sophie for a minute. Sophie before everything happened. She saw her sister for the first time since their parents were kidnapped and it knocked the breath out of her. Short, bright pink hair blowing around her set face, Amy’s wide eyes stared up at the apartment complex. 

The stairs passed in a blur as Sophie barreled down them almost tripping over her feet on the way down. Amy,  _ her _ Amy. “Amy!” she yelled barreling into her sister. A moment too late she thought it would be extremely awkward if it wasn’t Amy.

But it was, and she hugged her tighter than ever. Sophie buried her head in Amy’s short hair taking in the comfort of her sister. “You smell weird,” she whispered.

“Missed you too, sis,” Amy chuckled lightly. 

“Dyed your hair and got glasses?” Sophie said, pulling away and holding her at arm's length. 

“Sorry, are we not going to address the fact that you’re passing as human? Under my original name?” Amy asked.

“Uh yeah guess I’ve got a bit of explaining to do.” Sophie rubbed the back of her neck.

“Oh yeah, but over coffee, because I was not ready to see my sister for the first time in over ten years,” she laughed, “And I need a lot more energy cause we have a lot of talking to do.”

So they talked and talked until the sun set behind the skyline and the street lights flickered on empty roadways. They talked until they were out of coffee to drink and snacks to eat and stars to count. 

Sophie could barely pay attention to the first day of classes. Every flash of strawberry blonde and soft eyes sent her back. Back to bright mornings and weird lockers and one on one classes. But not only that; it sent her back to her friends. Dex appeared in the ramblings of Jena, one of Amy’s many friends who could talk for hours about chemicals and science. He clouded her memory when she walked into Chemistry and it threw her back to his laboratory. She thought of him looking at the skinny, freckled covered kid that hung onto her Quantum Theory teacher’s every word. 

When she walked into the library, three days in, and saw the spiraling stacks she remembered Fitz and how he could get lost in a book and never leave the pages. 

Marella could be found in the rare smiles that were Anaz. How sarcastic comments came to her with ease and there was always gossip flooding the halls. 

In her English teacher’s humor, she found Keefe. How she collected pens just because they were there and how doodles filled Amy’s margins. 

Red became her color. In the morning when she didn’t know what to wear Biana flooded her mind. When she didn’t know how to hide her scars she thought of her. Sophie would wear them as a testament to the people she left behind. And when her eyes caught sight of the scars that littered another student’s body, clear on their dark skin, she stood a little taller. They were a testament to survival.

Tam, she remembered when the world was so /loud/. How he was able to control his impulses, his power, his shadows like her telepathy. When she just wanted to hide from it all she remembered him, and kept going.

And the one that came as a surprise to her was Stina. The cold exterior and the sense of superiority that followed Henry, who locked so much of him away in a tiny box, to hide from the rest of the world. And how when you really got to know them there wasn’t a small corner that was as cold as it seemed.

But the one that never really went away was Linh. It didn’t surprise her. No, she knew she would never really get Linh out of her head. So Sophie accepted the small tug that came with seeing people together. As they laughed and smiled and hugged, as two girls held hands firmly; she wondered if that could’ve ever been them. If their broken world would’ve allowed it.

When she thought of them, her hand found her neck and the crystal and she held on tight only to let go. Because that was no longer her, and those people were no longer her’s. Amilia Ruewen did not know them. The crystal was all she had left of them.

And at some point that would have to be okay.

“You’re coming to this club with the group tonight,” Amy grinned.  _ Ugh _ , a night with Amy’s friends? Sounded like torture. 

“Why?” Sophie asked. In her head and in her apartment, they were Sophie and Amy. To the world, their jobs, their school, their friends, they were Amilia and Natalie. 

She didn’t have work until Saturday and she had already finished her homework and Amy knew this. There wasn’t a way she wasn’t going. Amy looked up and smiled all teeth, all eyes.  _ Someone save me _ , Sophie thought.

Spoiler: it went a lot worse than she expected.

There was a feeling that Sophie knew well. It was why she was here in the first place. The feeling started in her wrists, where she had been bound countless times. It spread up and down to the edges of her fingers which had caused so much pain. The fingers that held weapons and the hands that held both the blood of her enemies and friends. It filled her shoulders with tension and her legs with a need to run. But she couldn’t. She was surrounded by bodies, moving, dancing, controlled by the beat of the drums that shook her core like a war cry. That’s ‘cause it was a war cry. The bodies dropped around her. The image of her friends, the small family she had made, half-dead and filling up every bed in the Healing Center. She had run away from them. That was what she alone had done. Sophie ran from the dangers and the responsibility.

_ Coward _ .

“Breathe,” an order. In. Out. One. Two. Three.

“Sophie? Soybean?” Amy’s voice. Amy’s hands on her shoulders. “Hey, hey,” her fingers cradled her jaw. “You’re right here, I got you, you’re okay. We won, it’s  _ over _ .”

But it wasn’t. At night the demons came back to haunt her. And she would be running from them for the rest of her life.

Sophie had told herself when she left the Lost Cities she wasn’t following orders anymore. Little notes and anonymous gifts were things of the past. She told herself this as she took a picture of her shifts for the next week. They flowed through her mind as she wrote notes for a lecture. Words scribbled on papers and typed on documents controlled her whether she wanted them to or not. They set the path and all she had to do was follow it.

This time it wasn’t directed at her. 

“Hey Soph, you got anyone who would send you mail?” Amy called from the hallway.

“Nope!” She had barely even heard what Amy had said, too absorbed by homework.

“Huh, okay.” 

“You sure it’s not for you? It’s from that town like an hour north of campus,” Amy asked a minute later, shoving the envelope in front of her computer. “Get out of your nerd stuff and look at important things.”

Sophie made a noise but took the envelope, “My nerd stuff is important!”

Amy chuckled lightly, “Sure dear, you’re almost as bad as Jena.”

“My lord Amy it has your name on it,” Sophie shook her head, “And Jena is really smart and, unlike you, actually capable of holding an intellectual conversation!”

“Huh, guess I’m blind.” Rolling her eyes, she went back to her homework as Amy tore open the letter. Where was she? Oh yeah-

“Do you know about that road house right outside of town?” 

“Amy I swear if you interrupt me one more time-”

Amy ignored her, “It’s a coupon to there. We could take the gang this weekend.”

“Yeah sure, totally, now just let me finish my homework,” Sophie said, not realizing that she could’ve just agreed to anything.

“Nat you can drink?” Amilia asked. It was a running gag.

“Oh shush, I’m not eleven anymore!” Natalie retorted. And she wasn’t eleven, she was twenty-three and Amilia had to remind herself of that often. 

The roadhouse was dark, full of wooden booths. In the corner there was a pool table surrounded by a group of guys. Amilia sat at a table with three of Nat’s friends,  _ her friends _ , she reminded herself. Thunk! The sound of darts reminded her of throwing stars. Shaking her head slightly she tried not to think about all she had left behind. _Amilia_ , she thought, but it echoed outside her head.

“Amilia!” Tina called, waving her hand in front of her. 

“Sorry, what?” she asked.  _ Get out of your head _ , she told herself sternly.

They all chuckled quietly and tampered off into their different conversations. It was a nice normal, zoning in and out, the words just soft buzzing. She traced the rough wood of the roadhouse with her eyes. The chipped, frayed edges. Dark, daunting, but cozy. The roof domed up to balconies with rooms for the inn part. Sophie didn’t know if anyone actually stayed there anymore. Posts came down into booths, to a karaoke machine in the corner, to the bar that stretched along the entire left side. There was a girl, flannel tight around her waist, short dark hair held up by various barrettes keeping the strands away from her face. The pen and cups flew through her hands with experience and it was mesmerizing to watch. Sophie couldn’t see her face, but there was a tugging feeling that the girl was familiar.  _ From a past life, _ she thought, and laughed. She had had many past lives. At this point she wouldn’t know which one the girl would’ve been from.  _ If she would just look up _ , the urge to know who she was got stronger. She was someone to her someone important-

_ Crash _ . Her heart pounded, her ears rang. The shattering sound of glass was ironic because it played backwards in her ears. Shattered heart becoming whole.

Sophie, because to that face that was all she was. Her feet moved without her permission. 

Because this girl wasn’t just someone to her, she was  _ everything _ to her.

She was the hardest to leave behind and the only one that could make her stay.

“I’m supposed to be bartending,” Linh whispered into her shoulder, “and your friends are looking at us.”

“Fuck off, I get the longest hug I want after not seeing you for a decade,” Sophie laughed stubbornly into her shoulder.

Linh turned her head into Sophie’s neck and hummed quietly, “I think that’s fair.”

For the first time she relaxed. The world fell off her shoulders and she realized this was the feeling she had been chasing. Linh smelled like cigar smoke and whiskey and cats (she made a mental note to ask about that later). But she knew, as she shifted closer, holding Linh as tight as she could, after all those years she would still smell like the ocean, she’d still smell like home.

The next morning she found herself passed out in a room that wasn’t her own. An old lamp sat on a wooden nightstand. Next to it, barely lit, was a piece of paper. In big bold letters it read:  **The Western RoadHouse** . In scratchy handwriting there was a note. it filled the entire card,words running into each other. In her very tired state Sophie could barely decipher it.

_ Hey! Sorry I had to work early and you looked way too peaceful to wake up. How much of last night do you remember? We talked about how I got here, and how you got here. And, well, we talked for hours and did you know the more tired you are the pinker your ears get? And the easier it is the fluster you? You also get clingy and rub your eyes a lot. I ended up having to carry you up to my room and swear to Amy on everything that I had you would be okay. But I realized in that minute in a half of hauling your dead weight and listening to you murmur in your sleep that I had missed you. I ran away because I’ve always been running, but I don’t wanna run anymore. If you’d let me, I’d like to run to you instead. This is me asking if you’ll be my girlfriend, or just go out on a date if you didn’t get that. So yeah? Can I run to you? _

For a moment she thought she was dreaming. Then she read it again and all she could do was laugh. Rubbing the sleep out of her eyes she grabbed a pen and paper and wrote a simple message in neat, loopy handwriting.

_ Well then runaway, _

__ _ Come running. _

She wrote her and Amy’s address at the bottom and slipped it into Linh’s bag on the nightstand on her way out. When Amy pulled up in the van she only raised an eyebrow.

“Did you win?” she asked, turning down the music slightly as Sophie closed the door.

She smiled, mouth crooked, eyes wrinkled, for once unguarded and wild. “Yeah, I think I did.” Shouts rang out from the back where her friends crowded together. They whooped and hollered and clapped her on the shoulder as Amy pulled the van out of the lot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Weeeeee the cuties are here!! Ngl Amy is like my favorite character I love her to death idc if she’s a side character, comments and kudos are so appreciate they make my friggin day   
> You know the drill: follow my tumblr for earlier content and more stuff (I also draw lil things too so send in some requests for that too!)


	3. Phase One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a bit different update, things like this will probably happen in between some chapters! Its a Snapchat update I wanted to switch things up

Someone is planning something.


	4. Change of Plans

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: AAH I am so sorry this took so long to update!! And for anyone who didn’t understand the last update it was sorta Snapchat update and once again my beta for this was @bookwyrminspiration

There was a feeling of freedom that he used to feel every day. Tam missed that feeling as he dragged his sleepy body through the halls of Foxfire. He wanted to laugh. Why, in any world, was he here? He had been outlawed once before, seemingly too dangerous for them. And now here he was, spending day after day teaching children who didn’t understand how wrong their ways were; how to use the gifts they neglected for so long.

“Sir! Sir, is this how you do it?” a kid in the back asked as he floated a few inches in the air. He wobbled as he got higher and tilted from side to side trying not to lose his progress. Tam looked over in approval; he smiled a small smile, and the kid broke out in a grin. 

By the time the bell sounded with a shrill most of the kids had figured out how to float a few inches.  _ Just a normal day _ , he thought as the next swarm of children came loudly into the clearing.

-

It had been a day since Sophie had gotten Linh’s number, and it had been five hours since the last time Linh texted her. She was using every bit of her self-control to not spam random comments about her classes that were so blatantly desperate cries for attention. Sophie wouldn’t be a clingy girlfriend. That wasn’t her personality. Right? 

She wasn’t able to resist the urges that pulled her eyes to her phone screen or the corner of her laptop, begging for a notification to pop up. Quantum Physics was the one class she could actually pay attention to, something she was interested in to get her mind off of the girl who was probably busy working. With many glares and smacks on the arm, Amy drilled it into her head that Linh was “just busy” and Sophie herself had “done nothing wrong.” Sophie doubted both of these but played along for her sister’s sanity. 

“What if her feelings have changed?” she asked at lunch, anxiously tapping her finger on the plastic table. Amy raised her eyebrow and looked seconds from dropping her head in her cheese fries.

“Then she’ll get the reward for the fastest change of heart, it’s been  _ three days _ ,” she said and rolled her eyes.

“My relationship with Fitz lasted for like three weeks,” Sophie said matter-of-factly. It was roughly true; even with her perfect memory, days and nights back then ran together making exact times hard to determine.

“That doesn’t count, you guys weren’t technically dating,” Amy brushed off as she slurped the last of her shake. “Plus, she wrote you a note, that’s pretty serious.” Sophie shrugged and tried not to reach for her phone again.

-

“I miss running,” Linh said, staring at her plate. They had been eating dinner, some new recipe that Biana had introduced Linh too. It tasted a bit bland but Tam really couldn’t care about the taste; he was too busy replaying Linh’s words. Running had been the worst years of his life. Trying to find places to stay, not knowing if he could find food, knowing that the next day would be even more brutal. “I know what you’re thinking,” Linh said with a sigh. He made a noise in response. 

“I don’t mean the life or death stuff, that was horrible. I mean like the times that we found that river? Or that field with hundreds of dragonflies! And when the gnomes taught us how to bake and how to make our own clothes! I miss that! I miss it being an adventure,” she said, longing clinging to her words.

He scoffed, “Only you would see it as an adventure.”

“It was more of one than Foxfire will ever be for us.” He couldn’t deny that. The kids didn’t quite need him, and honestly, he felt too young to be teaching them. Never going to the upper levels made his oldest class only a year younger than him, even if he was ages more mature.

Linh studied her plate. “We’re too young for this. For the war we’ve been through. To be teaching children how to fight because the leaders of our world are scared. We need time to grow up.”

That was when he finally got it. “This is about Sophie leaving.”

“It is not!” she shouted. He shook his head, getting up. 

“Look,” he said as he started stacking their plates. “I know you two had this weird suppressed emotions thingy that you never talked about, but seriously, it’s been a year since she left.”

Linh sighed. “I miss her but I promise this isn’t about her. I just can’t seem to walk into those halls and teach those kids and not feel like an imposter. Maybe we just don’t belong here, and we’ve never tried belonging in the Forbidden Cities.” Linh was asking for a lot, but by the look on her face, she knew it. He understood what she was saying. He didn’t seem to fit in around the others, and that was okay. He wasn’t supposed to fit. But honestly, he hadn’t talked to the rest of the group in months, and his students were only there for past mistakes, past fears. Mistakes that weren’t his. What did he have to lose?

He stared her in the eye and nodded. “Okay.”

Packing was simple; he still had his old duffle. Dex gave them a harddrive identical to Sophie’s and stole a leaping crystal from the Council for them. “What they don’t know won’t hurt them,” he said with a wink. He was the only one they told; it was easier that way. That way once they were gone Dex could simply say they’d left and reassure everyone that they weren’t dead. 

The night they chose was cold, very cold. Snow fell around them in slow motion. It covered the hills, the house, the bushes, everything. The only thing colder than the snow was the icy determination on her face , but he knew underneath she was ecstatic. He reached into his pocket and grabbed the small crystal,  _ Here we go _ , he thought. This was no time for going back, for second thoughts, for last-minute grabs. This was Tam, this was the way he made the decision to follow his sister because he didn’t have second thoughts when it was Linh. 

-

Linh picked her up from school, making her heart skip a beat and anxiety settle itself into a solid in her stomach. A huge grin, bright eyes, and a beanie holding her chaotic hair in place greeted her. The sun’s rays fell in her eyes as she jogged blindly to the dirty white truck. “Didn’t take you for the truck type,” Sophie remarked as she reached Linh.

“It’s actually Chris’s—my boss—he thought picking up my girlfriend was a valid enough reason to take the afternoon off and use his truck. Especially since I got Beth to take my shift,” she threw a smirk over her shoulder and crossed to the driver’s side. 

Sophie switched the music twelve times until Linh grabbed her hand to stop her. She focused on the warmth of the hand covering hers to distract herself from the thoughts in the back of her mind, questions that wouldn’t go away, but if she asked them they would sound ridiculous. Linh didn’t need to know about the crazy anxiety underneath. Not yet, not for a while, so Sophie focused on Linh’s hand, her callouses, the lines, her fingers laced between Sophie’s.

“So do I call you Amilia?” Linh asked through the crippling silence. 

That made her think. At home, she could be Sophie, and in her head, she was Sophie, sometimes to Amy she was Sophie. To the rest of the world she was Amilia, but maybe it would make sense for Linh to know her how she always had. Shaking her head she responded, “No, to you, I don’t think I’ll ever really be Amilia.” 

That was that, Linh only nodded and started dancing to the song that was playing. Sophie watched her and laughed, singing along in her own horrible voice, and forgetting about the emotions that had risen with her own words.

The afternoon carried on, window shopping and debating if frozen custard was better than ice cream. Half the time Sophie’s face was burning and her heart almost beat its way out of her chest every time Linh laughed. It was normal, completely and utterly normal. If it was a movie Sophie would’ve fallen asleep and Amy would’ve been acting like the action had only just begun. Part of her mind wanted to know if Amy had ever felt like this. Part of her wanted to know if the feeling ever went away.

-

“What is this place?” Tam asked her. There were hundreds of towering buildings staring down at them, watching. The glass, the lights, the cameras on street corners and shops; it was overwhelming. On the other hand, Linh looked completely in her element. She looked like herself for the first time. He still resisted the urge to put himself in front of her and this new world. This wasn’t his place, but it was Linh’s and because of that he would make it.

“It’s called Denver,” she responded, and there was a look in her eyes that Tam didn’t like.

He didn’t like any of this. “Come on dear brother, Dex gave us the address for a ‘hotel’ to stay in.” The look on her face suggested that there was more to do than just find the hotel.

They headed west, trying to tell the building apart from the others. Tower after tower went by and crowds of people trapped them. Swarmed on every side, talking, moving, crashing into one another. Colors, sounds, shapes, things he had never seen. It took everything in him not to jump every time a person bumped him, to not take a friendly smile as a threat. This, _this_ is what he'll always remember of running. How when they got to the dwarven cities he clutched Linh's hand just to know she was still there. When their parents kicked them out and everyone they knew suddenly turned against them. He'll always remember the blood pounding in his ears, the buzz of his veins, the thoughts like arrows in his head. 

His throat went dry, and his voice broke when he spoke, "Linh, Linh I don't like this."

"Come on, it's not far!" She didn't even look back. So Tam kept going even as his mind began to scream danger and begged to turn back. _She needs this_ , Tam thought. 

_But why?_ a part of him asked, and he quickly tuned it out. He didn't have second thoughts with Linh.

-

They pulled into the apartment complex as the sun started to set below the city line. Sophie laughed when Linh ended up getting lost three times. She didn’t say that she knew it was on purpose. She didn’t say that she, too, wasn’t ready for the night to end. Only laughed and gave her the right directions again and again.

The big black numbers on the side of her building came into view and for a split second she thought about not pointing them out, but Linh had already seen them. The steering wheel turned too fast for Sophie’s liking as they pulled into a parking spot next to the stairs. Doors shut softly in the dark silence of the night, and the stairs seemed shorter than she remembered. She wished there was a way to slow down time to make this moment at her door last a bit longer just so she could look at Linh one more time. 

“So, I guess this is it,” Linh said softly, barely audible over the wind.

“Yeah, I guess it is,” Sophie looked up at her eyes, they were bright in the dark of night. They glistened and held something behind them like she was waiting for permission. It gave Sophie a burst of confidence and she asked, “Or you could stay the night?”

Linh’s eyes widened and for a beautiful, heart-stopping second Sophie thought she would say yes. She laughed nervously and said, “I think that there’s an unspoken rule about not staying the night after a first date.”

Sophie opened her mouth to respond when the door swung open loudly behind her to reveal Amy in fuzzy socks and some form of mismatched pajamas. “Yes! There is! It’s called: Sibling Gossip Time so get-“ Amy said hurriedly and out of breath.

“Amy!” Sophie exclaimed, Amy only rolled her eyes. “I am so sorry about her, but yeah she’ll probably kill me if she doesn’t get an update. Tam would probably be worried if you didn't come home, I'd rather he not kill me." For a moment Sophie thought that Linh’s eyes widened in surprise, thrown off by the mention of Tam. She pushed the thought out of her head trying not to think what it meant.

With an easy smile, Linh pecked her on the cheek, momentarily freezing Sophie’s brain, and gave a small wave to Amy and made her way down the stairs. Sophie could only stare after, words in her throat but not getting any farther.

-

A month later, they had found a place to stay outside of hotels and motels. Tam was able to find a job at a grocery store while Linh worked afternoons at a restaurant down the street. The moon was high in the sky and Tam was finally falling asleep when Linh stumbled through the door. A small crashing sound followed the door closing. "Linh?" he called out hesitantly, "Are you okay?"

A ray of light revealed her disheveled face. Makeup ran down her cheeks and her hair was disheveled. "Clearly not," she said, a bite in her words.

"What happened to you?" he asked, throwing off the covers.

"Go back to bed."

Tam stared at her, eyebrows furrowed, eyes wide, "No I'm not leaving you alone."

"I’m telling you to leave me alone. I am *fine*."

"Did I do something?"

Linh groaned. “Well yeah, you weren’t supposed to see this.

“But I did, now what?”

Linh whirled on him, “Now, you stop asking questions and forget about it, got it? I don’t need your help.”

Her nostrils flared and she stared at him with a fury he’d seen before but always directed at other people; for once he was scared of his baby sister. He had so many more questions and concerns but he’d never seen her so angry before, so reckless. For once he was scared of what she’d do. “Okay,” he said simply. He wished he hadn’t.

\- 

The moment the door closed Amy dragged her to the couch and forcibly sat Sophie down. “Tell me _everything_ ,” Amy said, eyes narrowing. 

“Well she picked me up from school,” Sophie started, trying not to laugh.

“Well yeah; I already knew that but it does give her some bonuses for being classic,” Amy nodded.

Sophie halted, staring at her sister quizzically. "I'm sorry are you testing my girlfriend?"

"Oh sweetie, what else did you expect me to do?"

"Be normal?" Sophie raised her eyebrow, but Amy only laughed. So, Sophie continued and recollected the night. Only a few times Amy butted in with comments.

When she finished Amy hesitated and asked, “Did you guys talk about Tam at all?” 

Startled, Sophie said, “No, why?”

A look crossed Amy’s face that she didn’t quite like, “I just think you should ask her about him.”

And that was that; Tam didn’t get brought up, and neither did Linh. Shoveling oven pizza in their mouths in between words, Amy hopped from topic to topic like their conversation never happened. Avoidance, Sophie knew the strategy all too well; she played along anyway. It was easier that way.

-

Linh wasn't talking to him. No matter how many times he tried, through notes, through shadows, through everything he could think of. She pretended he didn't exist, spending nights out more often or avoiding him completely when they ended up home together. Tam was lost. This was who they were, they didn't fight, they tried not to argue, and when they did Linh always came to him to talk it out. That's what he did. He waited for her to come to him. 

He took as many shifts as he could, some days he watched the sunrise and set through the dirty glass. He didn't talk to coworkers as much as they tried, he didn't need new attachments. It happened slowly, realizing that he didn't see Linh anymore. She was either out doing something when he got home or passed out on the couch. Tam didn't know how he could help if she wouldn't let him. 

The first thing he noticed was that she wasn't sleeping. At night he started to pretend to be asleep and see if she would get up. Every night, after thirty minutes of laying there, she'd get up and go out. She didn't sleep, the bags under her eyes grew. So did the hole in his stomach.

Then she stopped coming home at all. She'd leave a note saying she was gone, at this party or another, taking one more shift so they could pay for rent. There was always a reason. The only sign of his sister was the laundry basket that would sometimes appear by the door while he slept.

"Where's my work clothes dammit!" It was the first time she spoke to him in two weeks.

"What?" Tam asked the air, still bewildered by the fact that she was *talking*. 

"My work clothes! I've gotta take Wyatt's shift and mine tonight which means I'll be like the only person there and I need my work clothes! Wyatt's gonna kill me if I'm late I can’t be demoted- they were right here I swear!" she threw up her hands and paced. 

"Calm down calm down-"

"Don't you tell me to calm down-"

"Oh, I'm sorry the first time you've talked to me you're losing your shit over something simple-"

"Well I for one would like to pay for rent and I need my *freaking work clothes* to do it!" she glared at him with fury he hadn't seen before.

"Well if you actually talked to me you'd realize I got promoted so you don't need to worry about rent right now!" Tam yelled back, throwing his arms out. 

"I'm not talking to you? I never see you to talk to you anymore!"

"That’s because you're always out making some other mistake that I am not going to join in on!"

"This would've never happened if you just stayed HOME!" she yelled and her voice cracked a bit, "You were happy doing the same damn thing over and over again. You would've thrived there."

"You asked me to come, you asked me for Sophie, for adventure. I said yes because I didn't want to fix our world's problems but this isn't *better*," Tam’s eyebrows furrowed and his tone implored. 

"Yeah well, maybe you should just go home because clearly being here isn't doing anything for you. I should've never told you I was leaving, that was my only mistake," she said her voice calm. 

Somehow that hurt more than when she was yelling. Linh gave him a final, pitying look before she closed the door behind her with a final slam. 

The door closed, and he could hear her feet receding and he made his decision. He didn’t belong here, but maybe Linh did, and he had to trust she’d be okay without him. 

-

Laying alone in her bed Sophie studied the ceiling. Why hadn’t Linh talked about Tam? Or at least mentioned him? She tried not to think about it. It wasn’t her business anyway. _Why would she hide it though?_ her brain asked. 

Sophie could think of a thousand reasons. 

_ But what if she doesn’t trust you? _

Chilling air brushed against her toes and she pulled them back under the fluffy blanket and curled herself in a ball. The fan on the ceiling still made noise every time she turned it on, a soft, _tick, tick, tick_. The wind was loud. Her distrust was louder. It ticked through her thoughts as she drifted, still, she couldn’t shake the cold dread coming over her. 

-

Tam left. He cleaned up his stuff, washing his clothes in the meager washer and dryer and throwing them into a duffle bag. By the time the moon had risen he was all packed. He grabbed the elven crystal from under his pillow and held it up to the moon. With a flash, he was back in the clearing they had left in a half a year earlier. This time, Fitz was standing there, startled like a scared deer, staring at him like he had seen a ghost.

"Dex said you weren’t coming back," Fitz finally said barely above a whisper.

"Plans change," Tam said simply. "Where are you going?"

"Following your lead I guess, hoping I last a bit longer," he responded, staring at the crystal in his hand. There was a look in his eyes that Tam wanted to understand and in a split second of impulsiveness, he made a decision.

"Mind if I hitch a ride?" he asked, Fitz gave him a crooked smile.

"Thought you'd never ask." 

-

Finally, drifting off, Sophie’s mind was still on Linh, on Tam. Questions that she didn’t know how to ask. Without her control, her mind searched for them. That night, her dreams were filled with memories that were not hers.


	5. Starting of a Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No- Sophie stumbled a bit, no it couldn’t be. But no, she remembered. Three weeks after being at the new apartment she got mail. Not some shipment for her, a postcard, with four words written on it. With shaking hands Sophie grabbed the card out of Linh’s hands like she was in a dream. 
> 
> I’m here, always. - Mari
> 
> Far deep inside of her, under layers and layers of running and hiding and nights of crying, something broke. She was lonely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yall I am soooo sorry this took so freaking long!!! but its done and I hope yall like it this was so much fun to write even if it took over a month because of school and stuff but its here so yeah! please dont forget to comment or reblog they mean so much too me :D and thank you @bookwyrminspiration for editing and helping me get this out as fast as i could

Sweat dripped down her spine as thoughts raced through her head. Sophie didn’t quite understand how it had happened, all she knew was that somehow she had Tam’s memories. Memories of Linh and arguing and Denver. How had she gotten in his head? Did Tam know she had seen his memories? She hadn’t touched her telepathy in years. School was hard without it, but she had her memory, and she didn’t want to know what her human friends were thinking; Fitz had somehow ingrained the rules in her brain. But somehow, after years of barely even _thinking_ about it, she had managed to reach Tam’s mind, which was probably hundreds of miles away, and had looked at the exact memories she was thinking of. 

Memories Sophie had no right to. Fear solidified in her stomach, a weight she didn’t quite know how to bear. “Soph? Sophie, you up?” Amy called from the hallway. 

The pillow behind her looked so soft and tempting to fall back into, but no matter what telepathy crisis she was having, she had a life to get to. “Yeah, I’m getting there.” The words came out rough from sleep. 

Grabbing her phone from the nightstand, she plugged in her headphones and started her wake-up playlist. Mystical powers could wait until after breakfast. 

Amy rode the bus with her to work, Their Saturday routine. Amy had tutoring with Jena (bless her heart), and Sophie who had worked at the cafe across the street. Normally she would work all day and get home around the same time Amy did from her afternoon shift. It worked well, and they would sit at home afterward juggling homework and takeout. 

"That guy’s picking his nose,“ Amy said, breaking the unintentionally tense silence. 

"That’s so gross, why would you say that?” Sophie whispered incredulously. No matter how hard she tried, her eyes couldn’t leave the man who, unfortunately, had a finger up his nose.

"Ha, now you can’t unsee it!“ Amy grinned triumphantly. Annoyed, Sophie grumbled back and went silent. She stared, lost in thought, not fully present. 

"Why are you so tense?” Amy said softly as if she didn’t quite want Sophie to hear. In the back of her mind, she thought it sounded like when she used to hear human thoughts.

"Hm? I’m not tense,“ Sophie lied, only to have Amy turn to her in surprise.

"I didn’t say that you were,” Amy responded quizzically. 

“But I heard you?” Sophie said. Was she hallucinating? No, she couldn’t be, she wasn’t crazy. Amy was still staring at her, eyes boring, brows furrowed. Studying her, Sophie really didn’t like being studied. Her tone bordered annoyed when she finally asked, “What?”

“Why’d you read my mind?” Amy asked, eyes narrowed and her tone hushed. “Isn’t there rules against that?”

It took a second for Sophie to process what Amy was saying. She hadn’t meant to listen in, but she hadn’t meant to go through Tam’s memories either. Was she losing control again? It was two minds; it could mean nothing, it wasn’t her fault, it was an accident! But what if losing control of her telepathy is only the beginning? This- the worrying, the panic, malfunctioning that reminded her she was only an experiment and a weapon- it was supposed to be over. Why wasn’t it over?

Too deep in her panic, Sophie was unaware of Amy grabbing her arm. The bus slowed down and Amy dragged her out of the bus and as far away from the swarms of people as she could. “Sophie? Soph you with me?” Amy asked desperately. In response, Sophie could only nod. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she thought, _oh, this is a panic attack._ The want to run, to move, to get away, exploded in her body everywhere at once. The walls around her mind fell next, and she heard everything at once. Her head pounded, her eyes watered and her knees gave out. She crumbled to the ground and Amy sank in front of her. 

Hands gripped her shoulders, hard but not in the way she knew. It wasn’t trapping but comforting, grounding, a reminder of where she was. Amy’s hands moved, one to her arm and one to the back of her neck. Amidst the screaming thoughts of passerby chaos and pain, Amy knelt in front of her, pressed against her and one thought rang louder than the rest.

_I’m here. I’ve got you. You can enter my mind if that’s easier, it’s gonna be okay._

Sophie wanted to cry with relief, if she could have talked she would’ve shouted with happiness. She choked in a breath, focused her mind, and plunged her mind forward.

Amy let out a sharp breath but stayed quiet. After over a year and a half of being in no other mind than her own, it was surprisingly underwhelming. It was weird, feeling her body in one place but knowing her mind wasn’t with it.

 _Hi?_ she thought.

 _You’re loud, geez,_ Amy responded. _How’re you doing?_

 _It’s easier to block everyone else out if I focus on you,_ she said. The pain was still horrible but she was getting there. One by one she matched her breaths to Amy’s and started to block off the other thoughts. Built her walls, brick by brick, until the suffocation of thousands of thoughts loosened and the migraine calmed. 

Eventually, Amy spoke. _So, when did this start happening?_

 _Losing control? After Fitz taught me what to do it hasn’t happened,_ Sophie responded.

 _No unintentional mind reading? Nothing?_ Amy had her there. Unintentional mind-probing more like. 

Sophie took another deep breath and leaned away from her sister but kept her eyes shut to block out the world. _Last night,_ she started, _I somehow got ahold of Tam’s memories. The ones of Linh and him when they first arrived here._

Amy remained silent, the only sound their breathing. A beat passed and Sophie opened her eyes to find Amy studying her, eyebrow quirked. _Go on,_ she finally thought.

Except Sophie didn’t quite know how to go on. In an impulse decision, she brought Tam’s memories to the surface of her mind. With a brief _Brace yourself,_ she transmitted them to Amy and watched her reaction as the scenes played before them. 

When it was over, and the scene of Tam and Fitz faded, Amy was silent yet again. “Oh _shit_ ,” Amy whispered, meeting Sophie’s eyes.

With a chuckle, Sophie bitterly responded, “Yup.”

“Have you told her?”

“No?” Sophie gaped. “How would I even say that? ‘Oh yeah so in my sleep I accidentally watched your brother’s memories and learned all the shit you didn’t tell me. hope you don’t hate me or anything’?”

“Okay, yeah, that’s a pretty bad conversation starter,” Amy agreed. “I don’t know how, but you need to tell her. This is pretty big.”

“I know,” she said with a sigh and Amy’s face softened with relief. Standing up she continued, “I guess we should get moving, we don’t want to be late.” As they walked, Sophie tried not to think about how she intentionally avoided saying “I will”.

-

Hours passed, tedious as always. Taking orders, making coffee, cups and bags, and people. So many _people_. Somehow Amilia’s head survived. A few slip-ups, when a part of her mind would get distracted. When the muscle memory of her tasks wasn’t enough and she had to rack her brain to remember an order only to get flooded with thoughts that definitely didn’t help her remember. 

At one point, when there was barely anyone in the small cafe, Amilia had an idea. Her gaze flicked over the cafe, from the plants scattered decoratively to the tables she had yet to clean. Taking a breath, she tried to open her mind up to one of her coworker’s thoughts. To see if she could after all these years only blocking off her powers. After a few tries (and tripping over a bucket of water) she managed to do it. With enough focus, she could open her mind and build walls around the thin connection between her and her coworker’s minds. 

She grinned, letting herself celebrate her small success for a fleeting moment until the door opened again with a ding and she was back at the register. The order was simple as Sophie plugged it into the small device. Her voice struggled not to sound bored as she called out the name when it was ready and returned to her cleaning. It was all so boring; her mind wandered to Linh coming over. She felt her heart flutter at the same time dread settled. _Not now_ , Amilia told herself as the small bell rang again and she found herself back at the register.

“Amilia!” Jena called, sauntering her way into the cafe like she owned the place. That’s what Amilia liked about the girl, how she wasn’t intimidated by anything. Natalie trailed behind her with a tired look in her eyes. 

“I need like three coffees,” Natalie groaned. 

“You won’t survive three coffees,” Amilia laughed, already starting to place their orders. It was the same every week, Jena with the most amount of sugar added to her coffee and Natalie with just straight black. Jena paid as an apology for whatever hell studying ended up being. 

Nat hummed appreciatively when James, Amilia’s coworker, gave them their order. In one move she downed the entire cup despite it being burning hot. “Ahh that’s the shit,” she mused.

“How did your throat not just disintegrate?” Amilia asked bewildered.

“I’m just not a weakling,” she retorted. “Also your girl is coming over once your shift is over if you haven’t forgotten.”

‘Your girl’, Amilia knew, was referring to Linh who had planned to come and hang out that afternoon. Which, after the events of the morning, she had entirely forgotten. “Fuck,” she hissed. “My shift is almost over so hopefully we can get home with time to spare to clean?" 

The apartment desperately needed cleaning, covered in piles of homework and dishes and trash that they only occasionally had time to take out.

Thirty minutes later the sisters were rushing onto their bus home, catching their breath as they grabbed the handlebars. When they finally arrived home, the tall glass building taunting them in the daylight, Sophie took the stairs two at a time and practically kicked the door in. She ran around the apartment in a fury trying to figure out where she could stuff things when she heard murmurs. 

"How long do you think it’ll take her to notice?” Linh’s unmistakable voice asked.

“Eh give her a second; She’s in the _zone_ ,” Amy responded, clearly trying not to laugh. Slowly turning around, praying desperately that her face wasn’t as red as it felt, Sophie faced the figures leaning in the doorway.

“Hi?” she said tentatively, but it came out more like a question.

“Hello, sweetheart. We didn’t mean to interrupt,” Linh responded with a grin.

Sophie tugged at her eyelash in embarrassment, “I totally just ran right past you didn’t I?”

“Yup,” Linh chuckled.

Sophie groaned and buried her face in her hands. “It’s nice to know you care about order though,” Linh said, gently pulling her hands away from her face and placing a soft kiss on her cheek.

Amy chuckled, walking in behind Linh, “Y’all are too soft for me. I’ll be in my room.” In a half-hearted response, Sophie stuck her tongue out as she passed. Linh’s arms were comforting around her as they snaked their way around her waist. Instinctively Sophie leaned into her touch and wrapped her arms around Linh before burying her head into the crook of her neck. The first thing that Sophie realized was that Linh was much taller than her, in all the memories she had Linh was shorter,but here she was, taller, and Sophie leaning against her instead of the other way. The second thing was that Linh was warm like a blanket or a human heater. Compared to the rest of the world, which was gradually getting colder because of the fall, Linh felt warm like home, like something familiar. 

“We should probably move,” Linh whispered, mouth against the top of hair.

Sophie hummed, “But you’re comfy.”

Linh laughed sweetly, “You were in the middle of cleaning, I don’t wanna interrupt that.”

Pulling back, Sophie surveyed the room. Unfortunately, it was still in need of some cleaning. “I can do that later; you’re here right now and I wanna spend time with my girlfriend.”

Linh just shook her head, “I like cleaning. It’s relaxing, and you can introduce me to that music you’ve been screaming about.”

Vaguely she remembered texting Linh late one night about the new band she’d found and how Linh just had to listen or she would die. She grabbed a cup from the kitchen, reluctantly started the music, to which Linh started moving slowly. “We can start in my room, it’s probably the worst,” Sophie said, stopping her brain from overthinking it before it was out of her mouth.

With that, they started cleaning, which was surprisingly more fun than it would seem. Now and then a song would come on and Sophie would throw down whatever she was holding and do an impromptu dance party. Linh would just laugh and watch her with those eyes that were full of adoration and pulled at Sophie’s heart, pulled Sophie farther and farther into this dream of reality.

She avoided thoughts of what Linh was, of the memories she wasn’t supposed to have seen, they but nagged at her over and over. Feet moved, things fell, and they laughed and danced, and Linh- _Linh_ just wouldn’t stop smiling. The small motion pulled at her heart and it was just like she imagined. It reminded her of the days during the war that they’d sit and sort through the clues, and for once Sophie found herself longing for that time. 

“Hey, babe?” Linh called from the closet as Sophie shook herself out of her haze.

“Yeah?”

Stepping out there was something in her hands. It was a postcard. She cocked her head to the side trying to rack her brain where it could’ve come from. “It says it’s from Kull? The hell kinda name is that?” Linh said.

No- Sophie stumbled a bit, no it couldn’t be. But no, she remembered. Three weeks after being at the new apartment she got mail. Not some shipment for her, a postcard, with four words written on it. With shaking hands Sophie grabbed the card out of Linh’s hands like she was in a dream. 

_I’m here, always. - Mari_

Far deep inside of her, under layers and layers of running and hiding and nights of crying, something broke. She was lonely. She wasn’t alone per se; Amy was there, Linh was there, giving her those concerned eyes and crinkled eyebrows, but she was lonely. Sophie missed late-night pancakes, and endless days laughing and baking hands filled with flour (distantly she wondered if that’s why Fitz had fallen in love with baking), she missed the hard exterior who had the best hugs and always knew what she was doing. She found herself missing Angie too, the weekends they’d play scrabble and laugh at how Angie would win every time no matter how hard she and Mari tried. Sophie longed for late nights sitting in Tommy’s attic, the lawnmower boy across the street that always came in for banana pancakes while unironically humming the song under his breath (she asked him about it once and he just said it was always stuck in his head). They used to play late night games until it was one in the morning and Mari was calling and asking if she was coming home (most nights she didn’t, too busy laughing and trying to throw popcorn into each other’s mouths). And something inside her realized she missed those nights. She missed the random people she’d fallen in love with, the late nights filled with laughter and shakes instead of nightmares and tears. 

Glancing up she studied Linh’s face. It was a mix of concern and confusion, a bit of hesitance, and a lot of wonder. The sudden urge to cry hit Sophie like a brick wall and she did. She cried quietly, knowing that this wasn’t something that needed to be cried over yet she needed to do it anyway. Strong arms wrapped themselves around her and Sophie buried her head and tears into Linh’s shoulder. “What do you need?” Linh asked after a moment of rubbing small circles into Sophie’s back.

“To go home.” Linh jerked back, confusion and bewilderment evident in her eyes because home to Linh would never be a small town with a dirt road and covered in trees, it would be a world of brokenness and misplaced ideals that forced her, _them_ , to fix it. It would be a world of shimmering crystals and jobs she never wanted. She didn’t know Sophie’s was the exact opposite. Sophie explained, the town and what she left behind, not why because it felt stupid, but she explained what Mari was, her friend (mother figure? The one who knew her better than anyone else?), she said she left, and she needed to go back. 

“Okay,” Linh said, a finality. And Linh pulled out her computer, and an hour later they had plans and were packing and it all felt too rushed to be real. It felt weirder when Amy said goodbye from the bottom steps of the apartment; she would be coming up the next day with the gang’s van. It felt weird, like moving through jelly when they stepped into the Grayhound station and Sophie was left staring at her ticket and at the bus in disbelief.

“Soph,” Linh whispered after a beat, “I think you’re supposed to, you know, get on the bus.”

Sophie knew the functions of buses, better than Linh most likely; she knew that one was supposed to step in it, choose a seat, wait for it to stop, and if it was the desired location one would step off of the bus. If her life were the movie she watched with her parents when she was little, she would walk gracefully, with soft music setting the mood, and when she would sit down, she would let out a breath that she wouldn’t know she was holding. She would watch out the window wistfully, and at some point, the music would get quieter and the image of her would fade into the memories of herself meeting Mari, a speed-up of the year she had spent with the woman would play. The music would rise, and the scene of her running trying to hold herself together in the pouring rain. The camera would follow as she ran to the bus stop, as she grabbed a ticket and made it to the last bus for the night with her little duffle bag and tears picture-perfect, the ugly sobs that wracked her that night were just not movie material, and the scene would switch just as she was sitting down in the memory to her standing up, with a new determination in her eyes, in the present.

But, this was not some multimillion-coming-of-age story with a bow on top.

Because Sophie herself was too much of an emotional mess and a real person (term used loosely and does not apply to being a secret-elven-war-hero and more used in the sense of the emotional trauma and not knowing how to function normally that comes with being a secret-elven-war-hero) to be the star of a movie. Who would pay money to go see someone with human emotions also fail at life when they can just look at themselves or the people around them for free? 

“Earth to Sophie!” Linh snapped in front of her face.

“Yes, I’m alive, huh?” Sophie rushed.

Linh snickered and made Sophie blush more than she wanted to admit. “I was wondering if we were actually going to get on the train?” Linh said gently.

“Oh, yeah, I’m sorry it’s just weird, I needed a minute,” Sophie apologized.

Linh smiled slightly and gently intertwined their fingers, “I get it, and I’m here for you.” Instinctively she leaned into the touch, but a knot of guilt and anxiety tied in her stomach along with thoughts that she had tried desperately to keep out of her head all day. _What are you hiding? If I said anything would you still be here? Or will you run from me too?_

They found their seats, and Sophie managed to steal her way to the window seat. She stuffed her bag under the seat in front of her and found herself stopping. She let out the breath, she hadn’t realized she was holding. A pit settled in her, a deep and endless feeling that she could get lost in. Down down down it went filled with black and heaviness she was so desperately trying to ignore. Her uncertainty scared her the most. It was like the Neverseen, she never knew how long her peace would last or how quickly it would be ruined. 

Hopefully, she could make this last another day. Another night of this feeling, of safety while holding Linh’s hand. She wasn’t quite ready for this to be over, to rock the boat, to ask about what Linh did. It was selfish, but Sophie was a selfish person. 

The man at the front of the bus, the driver, stood up holding the microphone, and started to say something probably about rules and destinations, but Sophie couldn’t hear a word he said. At that moment her thoughts were flooded as the boundaries she built came tumbling down. “ _Fuck,_ ” she whispered, she could barely hear herself. Squeezing her eyes she tried not to cry and kept her head down. This time it wasn’t nearly as bad as the street which had so many more people, but still, her head pounded and she dug her nails into her fingers resisting the urge to pick at an eyelash. Surprisingly, it was pretty easy to hide the pain from Linh, whose sole focus was the driver’s words. She clamped her jaw shut and focused on the pain in her palms, trying to forget about the migraine. The Grayhound suddenly roared to life and started to move jostling Sophie back into her seat, the motion making it worse. “ _Fucking christ,_ ” she hissed as a particularly loud thought rose to the surface. 

“Babe? You okay?” Linh asked, putting her hand on Sophie’s arm, finally noticing that Sophie was very much _not_ okay. It took everything in her not to snap something sarcastic back. 

Instead, she went for a hopefully convincing smile and said, “Yeah I just need to run to the bathroom.”

Linh chuckled as she got up. “I told you to go before we left.” Sophie nodded in response as her head continued to pound and she reached up to pick an eyelash. She tried to hide the pain as much as she could walking towards the back, holding her balance surprisingly well as the jackhammer in her head continued.

She made it to the bathroom, which was smaller than she expected. Sitting on the closed toilet (it was the size of a portapotty and she wished there was somewhere else to sit) Sophie counted her breaths. Slowly, she opened her mind. It was as bad of an idea as it sounded. The pounding got worse like the thoughts were trying to crack her mind, but Sophie was determined. Sifting through the loud barrage of words and ideas she searched for the quieter voices. She found her way downward (not really but it was the only way to describe the feeling) pushing thoughts to the side building a guarded bridge from her mind. A tiny wisp of thought caught her attention, a blank spot between the screaming. 

_Gotcha,_ she thought triumphantly. 

Pushing forward, imaginary brick by imaginary brick she created a path to the silent mind that was most likely sleeping already. With a push, she found her way in as gently as she could, taking refugee in the calm. She allowed herself a breath before she started to build her mind walls around the second one. One by one the minds faded to the background like static until she was finally at peace in the stranger’s head. It felt weird, to say the least. The walls were up, she was fine, she was protected, and yet she felt reluctant to leave. Like she should figure out who this person was. Why did she care? That was a good question, Sophie didn’t quite have an answer.

As she was about to leave, pushing away her conflicting thoughts, a memory, tinted blue appeared. She shouldn’t have looked at it. That was her first mistake. There were rules against this intrusion, she wasn’t supposed to see it. And yet she was curious. So, against her better judgment, Sophie stayed and Sophie watched.

She could tell from the start the memory clearly wasn’t happy. It started in what looked like a bathroom. Dark and grim, dimly lit. They were staring down at the sink, something dripping from their face. It might’ve been blood. The door opened and the person’s head swung, Sophie caught a glimpse of dark hair in the mirror before her attention was drawn to the figure in front of her. 

Dangerous eyes matched a dangerous frame. A red and black striped shirt peeked out from behind a gray jacket rolled up to the man’s elbows. Peaking from under the edge of the sleeve was the end of an anchor. Dark eyes were accompanied by a smirk that made Sophie’s hair stand up. “What do you want?” a high voice said, presumably the owner of the memory. 

He only raised an eyebrow in response leaning against the wall.

“Oh stop that little act,” the voice huffed, “No one’s gonna see you here.”

His face relaxed and for a beat it was silent, then, "You’re being reckless.”

Saying nothing, the view shifted back to the sink. “I’ve got nothing to lose,” they murmured. Pale hands with bruised knuckles gripped the edge of the sink.

“Yeah? Well welcome to the club,” he said gruffly. “The whole reason this little group exists is cause every single one of those people? Guess what, they’ve got nothing else to lose except this place. And I’m not risking their safety for you.”

“Nice to know you care,” they said with a huff.

The man’s eyes were tired as he pleaded, “Look, you know I’m not great at emotions, but try not to pick a fight with every single person you come into contact with out there?”

“Yeah, I’ll try,” breathed the voice, defeated. 

“And Linh?” the man kept speaking, but Sophie couldn’t hear. Words were muffled as they looked up, and Linh's— _her_ Linh’s—face stared back at her in the mirror. 

Startled, Sophie stumbled out of the memory, out of Linh’s mind (why was it Linh’s mind?) all together. The wall of the bathroom smacked against the back of her head as she jerked back into herself. “What the _hell,_ ” she gasped. “What the hell." 

A beat passed till Sophie stood, bumping her knees against the wall across from her. It was awkward trying to maneuver her way out of the miniature-sized bathroom (it didn’t even count as a bathroom). Finally, she pushed the sliding door back to let her out and tried to avoid eye contact with anyone that noticed her. Fumbling her way out, still slightly trapped in her haze of how’s and whys and Linh Linh Linh- she almost passed her seat when Linh tapped her.

Sophie didn’t hear what she said, it all going in one ear and out the other as she tried to mask her intense waves of emotion and thanking the universe that Linh wasn’t an empath. She avoided Linh’s silver eyes, dodging her worried looks.

“I’m fine,” Sophie barked. “Just rattled, wondering what I’m gonna say to Mari,” she lied of course the thought of Mari hadn’t even crossed her mind until then. But when she started to talk she couldn’t stop herself, “It’s just been a long time you know? I don’t know if she even wants to see me. I left her just in the middle of the night with barely a goodbye after a year of living with her and her taking care of me and-“

There was a hand holding hers and another cupping her cheek. “Hey,” Linh whispered, her breath tickled Sophie’s cheek. 

“H-hey,” she stuttered as Linh brushed her thumb under Sophie’s eye, wiping off the tear she didn’t even know was there.

A small smile captured Linh’s face, it made Sophie wonder how this girl was the same one who used to be so so angry. _she probably still is,_ part of her thought before she shoved it away.

“We’re already here, on this bus on our way; this is the point of no return. Okay? And this may be the point of no return, but you’re not alone. I’ve got you and Amy’s coming up tomorrow. You’re not alone in this. Whether she wants you to come or not cause of how long it’s been since she asked, you need this, you can’t just bury this,” Linh said, her hands stayed cupped around Sophie’s face and her eyes held her gaze firmly. 

Sophie let herself nod as she noticed how close Linh was. Part of her wondered if she was supposed to kiss Linh (that’s what couples did right?) but another was stuck turning Linh’s words over in her mind unable to stop thinking, _But isn’t that what you did? Bury and bury and bury?_

Linh’s smile grew and she felt herself smile too, even if it was small and her mind was too busy overthinking for the aching in her chest to register. They turned away from each other, Linh with a small remark of how tired she was and Sophie grabbing her headphones from her bag. Plugging them in, a desperate attempt to shut out her mind, she felt Linh’s head on her shoulder and that smile returned and grew as Linh sighed and curled into her side. For a brief moment, she convinced herself that the girl in the memory was not the same girl she knew. For a fleeting second, Sophie pretended that she couldn’t feel herself setting the fire to the beginning of the end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dont forget to kudos and/or comment I appreciate them so much even if I'm terrible at responding thank you for your patience and support it means so much


	6. These Secrets Stain Us Red

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HIIIIIII IM BACK BOIS! Anyways this is a shorter chapter I didn't wanna mess with outline so you get tiny chapter. sooo woot woot for like barely 2k words? But like the doc im writing this on is at like 19k and 29 pages i am in shock. trying to get back a consistent updating with this so uh yeah dont keep your hopes up tho- working on ch. 7 rn hope you enjoy! As always betaed by the glorious @bookwyrminspiration on tumblr

They had gotten off the bus at the last stop before Kull, stepping out into the cold air. Sophie glanced at the trees in the distance turning orange and yellow. Distantly, she remembered when she was younger this was her favorite season, how the leaves would fall and crunch at her feet, and how it was actually somewhat bearable to be outside. She smiled at the memory as she held Linh’s hand, walking quickly to the gas station, her stomach already grumbling.

“Linh?” a voice called from behind them as they stood in line. Linh swung around, trying to find the source of who called her, nearly startling Sophie into almost dropping her water. The mystery person stepped out from behind a small cluster of people with an overly energetic wave. “Linh! It is you!” he called.

Sophie watched as Linh’s eyes landed on the man and her whole expression shifted. As opposed to the man’s own happiness, Linh seemed to put a wall between her real emotions and the rest of the world, her face betraying nothing. “Hey, Sameul!” Linh said in pretend excitement; Sophie knew that her words carried an undertone of malice.

This Sameul was not the man Sophie had seen in the memories, but from Linh’s reaction, he seemed to probably be involved in whatever Linh was in.

“That’s me,” Sameul responded, clearly not getting Linh’s annoyance like Sophie was. “Geez, it’s been what, how many months since I last saw you?”

“Yeah it’s been a while,” Linh said, her shoulders rigid and her jaw set. Who the heck is this guy? she thought. Their name was called and Sameul followed them to go pick up their food. Sophie tried not to feel trapped with the way Linh’s eyes darted.

Sameul smiled ruefully, “Last time I saw you you had a little backpack and were running out the door in the middle of the night.” Linh took in a sharp breath and stuttering to a halt, her tray of food almost dropping. Sophie raised her eyebrows, more confused than ever. There was a beat then a sharp ring interrupted the weighted silence and Linh’s eyes widened with relief.

“Oh Sam, I’m sorry, that’s her sister calling. She’s really gotta take that. Why don’t you come with me?” Linh asked, more of a command than a suggestion. Reluctantly, Sophie pressed accept on her phone, ready to unleash the crazy whirlwind of shit that she had found out on one completely unprepared Amy. “What up checking in blame Tina she was worried,” Amy said, boredom concealing her concern.

“Uhuh sure Tina was worried,” Sophie chuckled. “Anyways, Linh is being super suspicious.”  
Amy made a startled noise, “O-okay then so not well.”

Sophie nodded even though Amy couldn’t see her, “Yup, also uh side note, totally did not watch another one of her memories.”

“Sophie! It’s like you’re trying to do it on purpose!”

“It was an accident I swear!”

“Mhm, yeah, definitely.”

Sophie grumbled, “Oh screw off. Anyway, I was in this bathroom and her knuckles were all bloody like she had punched something. And then this guy came in and said that she wasn’t allowed to be reckless anymore, but from what I saw it was like she was living with some other runaway people I guess?”

Amy was silent for a moment. “Well damn.”

“Yeah,” Sophie agreed. “You shoulda seen her when this guy recognized her while we were getting food; she got like scary tense and for a moment I thought she was gonna water power him.” “Water power him? Really? That’s what you’re calling it?” Amy said. Sophie could practically hear her raising her eyebrow. “At that point just call it water bending.”

“I refuse to call it that.”

“How dare you; you’ve disrespected our childhood.” Sophie laughed. “But seriously,” Amy continued, and she knew she wasn’t going to like what she was going to say next, “Soph, what happened to telling her about the memories? Instead, you just spied more.” “She’s the one with the sketchy past!”

“That you don’t have any right to!”

“She’s been weird and I need to figure out why. Once I do I’ll tell her everything.”

“No, you don’t need to figure it out yourself! You need to talk to her and she will tell you if she’s ready to.” “Don’t tell me what to do Amy. She lied to me. The first night we were together we talked about how we got here and she lied to me like it never happened.”

“This isn’t war Sophie. Just because you’re scared, just because she lied doesn’t mean you get to invade her privacy. She’s not the enemy Sophie, she’s your girlfriend.”

Sophie hung up and her phone buzzed twice more while she watched Linh walk back over to her. This wasn’t Amy’s problem, this wasn’t Amy’s life, so screw her for trying to tell her what to do. She had the abilities and she was sure as hell going to use them. “Sam left,” Linh said with a clearly fake smile. “Said he should probably get back on the bus and didn’t want to intrude.”

At that Sophie raised an eyebrow, she didn’t need to use her telepathy to know it was a lie.

Stepping on the bus felt like placing the weight of the world on her shoulders. She knew that man was something to Linh, or Linh was something to him; maybe he was what Linh was running from. She didn’t have regrets when she reached carefully out to Sameul’s mind and glanced at what he said to Linh. Maybe she should’ve regretted it, but she couldn’t bring herself to. She needed to know, when she had left the Lost Cities it was her way of saying “I will not be lied to even if it seems better that way”. So much had been kept from her and here she was, getting things from the source instead of waiting for someone to tell her.

The words, “You haven’t changed Linh,” rang in her ears as she pulled back, not letting any emotions show on her face as Linh followed behind her. Linh didn’t say anything so Sophie didn’t say anything and they settled into a tense silence as the bus around them buzzed with noise. Sophie tried to think of something to say as the words played on repeat in her head but Linh beat her to it.

“You never told me much about Mari, about what she means to you,” Linh said. Each word seemed rehearsed as if she had said it in her head a thousand times before speaking the words into existence. “I didn’t know you cared,” Sophie responded quickly before she could think it through.

“Tell me about Mari?” Linh asked softly.

Despite what Sophie was hiding from Linh and what Linh was hiding from her, she couldn’t stop herself from talking. The words may have meant nothing as she rambled on about her life there, only meant to be a distraction, but she let them spill from her lips without hesitation. She talked of Tommy, Angie, and Mari, of her weekly game nights, of the regulars at the diner. The people she had come to love yet when the time came she didn’t hesitate to leave ‘cause she was scared. Scared of the permanence of it, scared she’d lose herself in the dream of it. And how when she burned those bridges all she felt was a gaping hole in herself. As she talked she thought of the people she had left in the Lost Cities; how she burned it all like she had when she was young and reckless and angry burning her mark, the moonlark, into the ground desperate to prove something, desperate to mean something. But now she was afraid of that, tearing everything to shreds, burning it to ashes because she didn’t know how to mean something to someone. She thought of what Amy had said and briefly wondered if she would ever be able to just talk about something instead of treating everything as a mystery she was destined to solve. Eventually, her words lulled Linh to sleep and she let out a soft sigh of contentment as she laid her head on Sophie’s shoulder. Sophie glanced at Linh, only allowing herself a quick look at her girlfriend’s soft and relaxed face before staring out the window watching the gravel pass, not allowing herself time for her guilt and sadness to rise. She wasn’t allowed those feelings. With every fiber of herself Sophie dreaded and couldn’t wait for the moment they stepped off of the bus into Kull, the town with as weird of a name as people.

An hour later, as the sun started to fall behind the trees and the sky began to turn dark, that moment came and Sophie found her entire body filled with anxiety. They made their way to the front, Sophie in front of Linh, her hand stretched behind her holding Linh’s hand like a lifeline.

They were the only ones getting off and within seconds they were left standing on the dirt road, the bus was long gone. The air was cold, and the wind blew lightly, tossing around Sophie’s ponytail. Neither spoke to the other, standing in silence, staring at the buildings in front of them. It felt like they’d break a spell if they moved, if they talked, so Sophie didn’t. But Linh did (a spell didn’t need to last an eternity in her mind, just for the moment that it was intended for). Linh squeezed Sophie’s hand three times, dragging her out of her haze to stare at Linh confused.

“It’s a human thing,” Linh said sheepishly. Distantly Sophie remembered Amy teaching her, three squeezes, “I love you”. Four squeezes back and Sophie had said, “I love you too.” She didn’t have time to think if it was a lie because with that she started walking, entirely on autopilot, the familiar route to Mari’s house ingrained in her mind. It was after hours, so there’d be no point going to the diner. So she dragged Linh down main street, taking a left about halfway down, and then it was another block til she found herself outside the door on the white porch of the bright mobile home with her whole body buzzing. It was almost too much to be there; staring at it again it was like nothing had changed. But something had, because she didn’t have a key, and so she knocked with all of the impulsive courage she had left.

Three rapid knocks.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five seconds.

The door opened with a creak.

It wasn’t Mari.

There was a man, about her height, hair pulled in a bun and silver bangs over glasses. He was familiar, why was he familiar? Linh drew in a harsh breath of air and squeezed Sophie’s hand as tight as she could. That was when the puzzle pieces fell into place. That’s when it all made sense. The man standing in front of her was someone she hadn’t seen in two years other than in the memories she had unrightfully stolen from him. The man standing in front of her, still with his signature silver, was Tam Song.

Amy’s phone buzzed next to her, pulling her away from rereading her homework question for the eight time. Ever since Sophie’s call and her following silence Amy couldn’t focus; she tried to distract herself, and pulled herself away from texting Linh and telling her everything Sophie had told her. It’s not my place, she would think. It’s not part of the plan. Her phone unlocked and she slowly processed the photo and message. It was a picture of Sophie leaning her back against the gas station with her hand holding her phone to her ear. It was just like her co-conspirators to be that dramatic they had to send a photo too.

**-Operation Collect the Dumbasses-**

_Braincell Holder:_ You know we heard that call.  
 _Pure of Heart Dumb of Ass:_ I thought we said that I would start this conversation?  
 _No Thoughts Head Empty:_ Yeah well you took too long.  
 _Braincell Holder:_ Not the Point.  
 _The Mental Stability:_ And the Point?  
This felt too pointed, Amy thought. Way too pointed and directed at her. Her phone buzzed again.  
 _Braincell Holder:_ Having second thoughts?  
 _Only slightly_ , Amy thought, but no no this needed to happen.  
 _The Mental Stability:_ No  
 _Pure of Heart Dumb of Ass:_ Thank the fucking ancients we can move on  
 _No Thoughts Head Empty:_ We’ve got a Phase 3 to begin

Phase 3, which they already had planned, would be the hardest to set up. Everything had to be just the right timing and just the right place.

_Incoming call from Braincell Holder_

Amy smiled as she accepted the call and long red hair popped into the frame. “Where is she?” Amy asked.

The redhead grinned, “She’ll be here in a minute, you know how Mrs. Sparkly Justice is; she’s got meetings but she said she’s got a friend who wants to help.”

Amy smiled, their little band of conspirators and their plan was working better than she could’ve imagined.

“So,” Amy said, “Where do we start?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ;)


	7. One Hell of An Exit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dex and Marella stood at his left, Dex holding some sort of snack over Marella’s hands as she lit a small fire, letting out a whoop when it just barely toasted. Keefe grinned with them, surprised at how far the two had come with their own fears of Marella’s fire. Biana tapped his arm, gesturing to a patch of grass a little ways from them and to the blanket in her hands. From there they had the perfect view of the light show, grinning ear to ear as they appeared in the sky. None of them talked of who they wished was there, and none mentioned the last time they’d watched the lights. They avoided topics flawlessly that they knew brought too much pain and weaved their way through, making their uneventful lives seem important. Honestly, the only semi-put-together person on that blanket was Biana; unlike the rest, she always knew what she was meant for, there was a fight in her that wouldn’t settle for anything less than a better world.
> 
> The rest of them were basically just melting mallowmelt. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another one done another one done! A longer chapter than the last, and the wait was because a lot of stuff came up and i didn't have much motivation to post because i was concerned that no one really cared about this so um yeah sorry

It had been three days since Dex told him Fitz left, three days since the pit in his stomach had started steadily growing. What hurt the most wasn’t Fitz actually leaving, it was the fact he told Dex instead of him. _Some best friend,_ he thought.

Keefe sighed and sat on one of the cots in the Healing Center. Elwin’s office had become home after a year of working as his assistant. Days went by, mindless and boring; they rarely got kids. Tam and Linh’s class often had the most injuries, sending in at least a kid a day because some idiot decided to go against the rules. But they were gone now, and Alchemy instructors were finally being more careful, actually watching the kids when they had dangerous chemicals, but it left the Healing Center bare. Somedays, as he played yet another round of cards with Elwin, he wished that at least one kid would get hurt so he could do _something_. 

Elwin did his best trying to fill the silence, teaching him new things. But Keefe knew that worry that came off him in waves, that concern that never really left after his coma. It had gotten stronger after Fitz left, keeping a watchful eye on him. Searching for pain that was there but Keefe was just too good at hiding it. No matter how many times he told Keefe that he wasn’t Cassius, that he would always be there, the wall between Keefe’s emotions never came down. 

“We should go see the Celestial Festival,” Elwin said, startling Keefe. “It’s next week and we haven’t been out much. I do always love Orem’s lights.”

Keefe hummed in response.

“I think Biana plans on going; we talked about it the other day.” Oh. So that was Elwin’s plan. Make him talk to people again. What was the point of it? Pretend that half of their friends didn’t get the great idea to hightail it out of this hell hole to be normal people for once? To pretend that they actually knew what they were without a war to fight?

“I bet with a little persuasion you could get Dex and Marella to come,” Elwin continued. 

“Yeah, maybe,” Keefe whispered softly. Why did he agree? Keefe pretended he didn’t know, but deep down under things, he didn’t want to look at he knew he was lonely. That he missed his friends. So why not take advantage of the few who were left?

The festival lights were insane. He stood with Biana as the council stepped to the stage, her determination flew off her in waves and he marveled at how far she had come. The way she held herself, scars on full display, mouth set, she looked older than he was used to. But when she glanced at him, through the flashing lights, her eyes were playful and mysterious and Keefe almost let out a sigh of relief that she hadn’t completely left and grown-up without him too. 

Dex and Marella stood at his left, Dex holding some sort of snack over Marella’s hands as she lit a small fire, letting out a whoop when it just barely toasted. Keefe grinned with them, surprised at how far the two had come with their own fears of Marella’s fire. Biana tapped his arm, gesturing to a patch of grass a little ways from them and to the blanket in her hands. From there they had the perfect view of the light show, grinning ear to ear as they appeared in the sky. None of them talked of who they wished was there, and none mentioned the last time they’d watched the lights. They avoided topics flawlessly that they knew brought too much pain and weaved their way through, making their uneventful lives seem important. Honestly, the only semi-put-together person on that blanket was Biana; unlike the rest, she always knew what she was meant for, there was a fight in her that wouldn’t settle for anything less than a better world.

The rest of them were basically just melting mallowmelt. 

Eventually, Biana had to leave, and the others ended up back at Elwin’s with a unanimous vote of we’ve-got nothing-better-to-do. They raided the kitchen and grabbed whatever snacks they could find before climbing the stairs to the roof. 

They laid there for who knows how long, staring at the stars in silence. “What do you think the others are doing?” Dex asked into the dark. 

Keefe sighed. He honestly didn’t want to know but spoke anyway. “Probably doing taxes.”

“What the fuck are taxes?” Marella asked, propping herself up on her elbow. 

Keefe chuckled, “Horrid, horrid things.” They lapsed into silence again, the only sound being the scattered animals roaming Spendor Plains. Keefe always thought the name was stupid, but he’d given up on trying to get Elwin to change it a long time ago. 

“I want to go,” Marella declared. Keefe glanced at her, but she was staring at the sky; Dex had the same puzzled expression on his face. Finally, she continued, “I’ve got nothing other than people who don’t want me here.” Her tone sounded defeated and honestly, he agreed.

“I’ll drink to that,” Dex laughed, half-heartedly raising his cup of Lushberry juice to the air in a mock toast. After his new power surfaced people stopped believing he could control it. They avoided him on the streets, they hated the fact that he worked with Elwin. It didn’t matter that he had won a war for them, the fact that his mother had started it and had turned him into something dangerous was enough. He glanced at Marella and Dex, knowing they were thinking the same.

A few minutes passed when, “Then let's go.” It was Dex this time, he had sat up, the others following suit. “They hate that we’re here. That _we_ saved them. They hate that Sophie and Fitz left, their Golden Heroes. We’re the screw-ups that are still here. Hell, look at us. The son of a bad match, a pyrokinetic, and a fucking mystery.” Keefe grunted, he’d been called worse. “We might as well find somewhere to belong.”

Keefe clapped sarcastically but he could already feel the addicting buzz of adrenaline in his veins. “Well said, fellow outcast,” he laughed. “But if we do this we’re not leaving quietly like the others.”

Marella nodded a grin taking over her face as she stood. “Buckle up boys, we’ve got one hell of an exit to plan.”

Around 1 am (Keefe thought it was one am, he didn’t actually know at that point), Elwin came out with a plate of snacks. Keefe didn’t have time to register what half of the things were when his attention was brought back to the sheet where he had sketched up the layout of a building—that Marella was marking exits on. Dex watched them, laying on his stomach with his chin resting on a pillow and messing with his device.

At some point they had moved inside, spreading along the couches, their ideas scattered in a chaotic order. Keefe didn’t quite remember when Elwin said he was going to bed, too wrapped up in whatever the others were saying to him. He glanced at the clock; its ticking hands read 4 am. He smiled around the room, Marella sprawled dead to the world asleep on one couch, Dex on the other sitting in a curled ball messing with something that Keefe couldn’t see. Right then, as he sat with his back against the wall and eyes drifting, Keefe couldn’t think of anyone else he’d want to leave with.

* * *

Keefe paced Elwin’s office like a mad man. He couldn’t sit still, not with the buzzing and churning in his gut. When Keefe would let out a heavy sigh Elwin would glance up smile lightly before going back to his work. 

“You know,” Elwin said softly, after Keefe’s fourth round of the Center, “I’m still not entirely sure what I’m going to do when you leave.” In surprise, Keefe looked up to find Elwin with watery eyes. Keefe halted and stared, shocked, to say the least. The realization of how much he meant to this man who had taken him in after everything he had done when his own father didn’t want him. He didn’t quite know what to say, he wasn’t used to this raw emotion that came off of Elwin in waves. Finally, Keefe’s face melted into a sad smile.

“You’ll be okay without me,” Keefe said, for once sincere. A beat of silence passed where Keefe could practically feel Elwin trying to think of something to say without crying. Without Keefe crying, cause Keefe _really_ didn’t like crying. “Plus,” Keefe smiled to try and break the tension, “You and the other parents can have weekly get-togethers about how much you miss our annoying little faces!”

Elwin let out a harsh laugh, “Yeah I guess we can.” Suddenly Keefe found himself wrapped tightly in Elwin’s arms. It still took him a second to remind himself not to tense up, that it was Elwin’s way of saying “I love you.” He felt tears welling in his eyes from the thought that it was real, that he wouldn’t see Elwin for a long time. He buried his head in his father’s shoulder and fisted his hands in the back of Elwin’s shirt. 

“I’ll miss you,” Keefe said finally, willing his voice not to crack. 

“It’s gonna be okay,” Elwin reassured. “We’ll be okay. You need this, and when you’re ready you’ll come back home.”

Reluctantly, Keefe pulled away, “What happened to me reassuring you?”

Elwin laughed, “We both know I’m much better at the reassuring.”

He smiled at that. Yeah, maybe he’d miss this place, but he had a whole world to rediscover. A rustle of paper coming from under the door jostled him out of his thoughts. It was from Dex, his cue to get moving. In small words it read:

“headed to the meetup point, all devices ready on schedule - TM" 

Keefe grinned and turned to Elwin, "That’s my cue! See you tonight, Dad.” He let the title slip out, Keefe had never called him that before except in his head. Before he could see Elwin’s reaction he turned and was out the door. 

Weaving his way through the deserted corridors, he found his way out of Foxfire to the courtyard, running to the leap master and hastily yelling out for Marella’s house.

He arrived to find Marella already waiting for him outside, duffles around her. “You ready?”

With a nod, they grabbed the bags and headed to the leap master, places to be. A minute passed and all three of them, Dex, Keefe, and Marella, found each other standing outside Biana’s office door. Getting in was the easy part, since Biana was gone the house was empty. 

“You ready?” this time Dex asked, Keefe was confused about why, after the night they’d had and the plan they’d put together, they’d think to back out. “After this, there’s no turning back,” Dex said, eyes drifting to Keefe and Marella.

Marella grinned, all teeth. “Come on boys, we hit the point of no return the minute we decided to leave.” Promptly, she stuck her lock picks in the hole and twisted them around until they all heard a faint click. It was Keefe’s turn to grin as Marella swung the door open and marched her way in. He followed, placing the duffles in the center of the room, Dex came after him and whistled at the flamboyant decor. 

The far wall was almost entirely glass, sun streaming in and lighting the entire room. A desk sat with trinkets and papers scattered. The wall where they entered was covered in bookcases. There was a small nook that wasn’t covered in poorly organized books. A dark wood frame surrounded a drawing that Keefe had given her; it was of the entire crew, a sort of sequel to the one he had given to Sophie all that time ago. They had been laying in her room after the twins left, a week before Fitz would too, and they had both confessed that they missed them. Sophie, Tam, Linh, how rarely the entire team would get together because they had no reason to. No war to fight, no reason they’d need to get together. Keefe thought that growing up fighting a war made them all forget how to have a simple friendship. 

Before falling asleep that night he decided to draw something to remind Biana of them. He would never forget the way Biana’s entire face lit up when he handed the painting to her. He softly smiled at the memory.

“I found the crystal!” Dex called from the other side of the room, half stuck in a drawer. “Marella, are you almost done?”

Marella, who had one foot on the seating part of the chair and the other on the back, was trying to balance on two legs of it with one circular disk in her mouth and the other in her hand, trying to place it on the ceiling. “Well I would be if Keefe would get his butt over here and actually do something!” she grunted. Tried to at least, her words came out muffled and confusing, but Keefe got the idea quick enough to grab the chair before she fell. 

“Oh my god,” Dex muttered. “I’m going to be the one making sure you two dumbasses don’t die, aren’t I?” In unison, Marella and Keefe grinned at him and he groaned. With one last little hop Marella got the device on the ceiling and planted the other on the bookshelf. Keefe placed one under Biana’s desk, and next to the door on the wall. It all hit them at the same moment as Keefe armed the last disk, and Dex drew out the letter they had written up on the roof. 

“I think I’ll miss her,” Dex said finally; Marella nodded. And finally, it felt like a bright neon sign, right in front of him, blinking bright and loud, and somehow all along he had missed it. The only reason the three of them had stayed was Biana. Keefe, who knew her as his little sister. Marella who she knew as a friend that no matter what was there. And Dex, as the person who stuck by his side when Sophie left him and waited to return the favor. Maybe it was poetry, maybe Keefe was connecting dots that weren’t supposed to connect but it made him want to laugh. 

“Yeah, me too, but we’ll see her before we leave,” Keefe reminded him a bit forcefully. If he were in that office any longer, he’d convince himself to stay. Marella took the note from him to read over again before leaving it. “Let’s go, we’ve got four more places to hit.”

Keefe didn’t wait for an answer and ended up making it to the leap master before the others. It took a few minutes, but finally, they were all there calling out for Foxfire.

It was dark, everyone had gone. Keefe didn’t quite understand how time zones worked with jumping from Biana’s house, which the sun was just then setting, and Foxfire where it was already dark with the moon high. Granted, he didn’t really try.

Foxfire, being much bigger than Biana’s office, forced them to split up. Dex took the top levels, Keefe took the middle, and Marella the ground floor. Keefe slung his bag of disks over his shoulder and made his way through the classrooms. It was slow work, finding good spots to put them in each room and through the hallways, with the bag which felt like it held a bunch of rocks.

The job went by in about an hour, even though it felt much much longer, and he finally made his way back down to the courtyard. “What took you so long?” Marella laughed as he came out rubbing his sore shoulder. “Don’t forget we’ve got more to do!”

“Yeah yeah,” he grumbled. “You guys done here yet?”

Dex poked his head out from behind one of the trees and said, “I’ve got two more left.“

Keefe could tell that the ones in his hands were the only ones he had left from how his bag looked much lighter. "So we can mark Foxfire off the list, ey?” Marella asked.

“Only three more places to hit,” Keefe grinned.

Dex rolled his eyes, “That’s not counting the spots inside those places. It’s much more than you think.”

Keefe just laughed in response; they were so close. To being free, to running away, the thing Keefe was so good at. Running, and well, making one hell of a lasting impression. That was really their plan. 

It was a short time till they found themselves in Atlantis weaving their way through the back allies to find the shed they had left the next batch of devices at. Dex reminded them, yet again because “everything _has_ to be perfect”, that Marella was taking the treasury building—which sounded entirely boring, which was why Keefe had opted out. Keefe would be taking the various transportation locations, and Dex the business district (also boring). Their rendezvous would be the monument of Linh, Sophie, and himself when they had saved Atlantis. Keefe remembered making some horrible joke about the monument when it was built, something about how they didn’t get his hair in all of its glory, but then, after seeing it again, all he could think of was how much he regretted that his stupid crush had gotten in the way of actually being able to get to talk with Linh. He wondered how many of the others he’d neglected ‘cause of it; he wanted to groan at how stupid he was.

“You good there, Goldie?” Marella asked.

“Why am I Goldie? You’ve got blonde hair too." 

"Okay, yeah, but my hair is more pale than gold. And plus I deserve something much cooler than ‘Goldie’." 

Keefe shook his head, "Okay, Braids.”

Marella, who had started to walk off, threw a smile over her shoulder. “Could use some work!”

“I didn’t have enough time!”

“Excuses! I expect something better when I come back!”

“Oh, so I’m getting graded?” Keefe shouted, but she was gone and he was left standing alone. Slinging his bag over his shoulder he headed to the nearest light leaper. There were about five of them across the city that only lead to other light leapers inside Atlantis. He had five devices, the smaller ones that would reach only the light leaper itself and the edges of surrounding buildings. 

In total it only took him about twenty minutes to leap to each spot, find a hidden location to hide the device, arm them, and then leap away. Marella and Dex had more to cover than him so he found himself sitting at the edge of the fountain, fiddling with the KMD, as they had ended up calling them. Dex arrived first, grinning and clearly riding an adrenaline high, with Marella in tow. “All set?” Dex asked.

Keefe stood. “Yup just as you planned, Techmaster.”

“Wait, why does he get a cool name?” Marella gasped.

“I like him more,” Keefe deadpanned. Dex smiled and did his best to look innocent (which he was really good at for some reason) and Marella rolled her eyes.

“Don’t just stand around; we’ve got places to be!” Dex called, already headed for the whirlpool.

With a chuckle, he and Marella followed. Mysterium was next, in Keefe’s opinion the most boring of their stops but the way that Dex’s face lit up when he spotted Slurps and Burps whirling and glittering in the distance made it worth it. Dex beamed with something like pride and it was infectious. Keefe shook his head slightly, at how easy it was for him to grin, at Dex’s face that was entirely dorky, and at Marella who smiled somewhat mischievously as she placed her devices. It was quick and easy work placing the devices while Dex dropped off the letter—almost identical to the one they had left Biana—at Slurps and Burps. They waited as Dex made his way back to them and practically ran when they could see him. There wasn’t as much time left as they had hoped; the sun was supposed to rise in about two hours, leaving them barely enough time to cover all of Eternalia. Keefe reached the leaper expecting the others to be on his tail when he turned around, but they weren’t. 

His eyes scanned fervently and finally found Marella and Dex standing off to the side, staring back at the Slurps and Burps. Keefe wanted to laugh at the scene if it wasn’t so serious. Marella, stoney, sarcastic, quick-witted Marella, had her arm over Dex’s shoulders like she was pulling him in for a hug. Keefe raised an eyebrow at her when their eyes locked over Dex’s shoulder and her face turned hard. _Speak of this and I will kill you,_ was the message Keefe read loud and clear.

After what seemed like ages, the pair made it to the leap master seemingly still emotionally intact and Dex with a new determined look in his eyes. As Keefe called out for Eternalia he couldn’t help but feel a new rush of adrenaline crash over him.

Now to tackle Eternalia it relied on many moving parts. Part I, the councillors homes. Each of them had two disks, set to cover a larger distance, and needed to place one in between every two towers. Keefe, along with his two devices, also was in charge of the KMD, which was to be placed on Alina’s tower. When they were still scheming Alina’s tower was the obvious choice of who they’d want to annoy the most. Alina’s surprisingly wasn’t the hardest to find, of course, being the most glittery and the most bright even in the dark. Just as he placed it he saw three flashes in the distance, Marella’s signal, marking her to finish first. Once the device was placed Keefe sprinted to his last spot when- CRASH!

He sprawled on the ground, head aching and pain shooting up his arms. _Fuck,_ he thought eloquently. Curses slipped from his mouth as he tried to stand. He managed to pull himself to his knees to determine just how screwed he was. He had rough spots on his palms that were bound to bruise, a huge scrape down his arm, a busted lip from the way he could taste copper in his mouth, and from how much his head ached, he had probably cut his head too. His legs were probably worse; luckily, he couldn’t actually see the extent of his injuries because of his pants (and from the pain he could feel he honestly didn’t want to see it). 

He was fine. This was fine. He would just push past the pain and get himself through downtown than he could figure it out. It was just a fall. _A fucking painful fall,_ his brain supplied unhelpfully. He saw three green flashes in the distance and cursed again. Dex was gone too.

He needed to get moving, and he needed to get moving _fast_. Keefe grunted, took a few breathes, and managed to get his feet. It was a bit harder to leap with an injury but he managed, and after placing his last device, he found himself in downtown. 

Dex saw him first, delight turned to concern turned to worry until he was rushing to him. “Why are you bleeding? Why are you beat up? I leave you alone for five freaking seconds-" 

"What happened?” Marella came up behind him with more annoyance than concern on her face.

“Well, I was going to explain to Gears over here-”

“Gears? Really?”

“-but I don’t think he knows how to keep quiet,” Keefe finished. 

“Start talking, now." 

Keefe sighed, "I fell.”

Marella stared at him, “You fell, and did this?”

“It was a very mean rock!”

“Oh, my Ancients-” Marella breathed clearly trying not to laugh.

“You’re benched. we’ve only got a few more left anyway,” Dex said, still eyeing his injuries. Keefe honestly didn’t have it in him to argue. Though it didn’t stop him from snatching the other KMD from the bag next to him and securing it to the ground with only a few winces. 

He watch as Dex and Marella placed the last couple of devices. They were clearly talking about something urgent, and from the way, Dex kept on glancing his way, it was probably about Keefe, but he wasn’t close enough to hear and honestly, it was getting on his nerves. What was so important they couldn’t tell it to his face? _Probably something you won't like,_ Keefe thought. He wasn’t always the best at taking bad news, though he didn’t think he was as bad as Fitzy used to be.

“We’re gonna have to jump back to your house before we can set everything off,” Marella stated. 

Keefe balked. “We don’t have time for that!”

She threw up her hands, “Well you went and got yourself hurt and we don’t exactly have another choice.”

“I am fine,” Keefe said, trying to hide the wince that came.

Dex rolled his eyes, “It’s a short pit stop, come on. We’re all done here; a few minutes won’t hurt the schedule.”

Keefe wanted to argue that it would hurt the schedule because the schedule was flawless and nothing mattered more than the schedule. Unfortunately, he knew that neither of them would actually listen to him. 

Admittedly, when it was all done, getting Keefe patched up with the cloth they found and cleaning off the blood took a lot less time than he initially thought. They had found Elwin’s stash of pain killer serums and as soon as Keefe took them he ordered them to get moving. “We’ve got places to be and things to set off!”

“Lead the way, dude,” Dex huffed. After the war, Forkle had ended up showing the rest of the Black Swan members where his office was—with a heavy, heavy swear to never show the council where it was. The best part about Forkle retiring: they could use the dusty office as a great spot to see pranks. That was probably not Forkle’s intent but who could really stop them?

Stepping into the weird round office (what had Sophie said it resembled? A hobbit hole? Keefe put that on the list as a first order of business to figure out when they got to the Forbidden Cities), it was like nothing had changed. TV’s still lined the wall, and the desk in the center had scattered papers from who knows how long ago. From his memory, Sophie was the last person here, she had watched right before she left, she spent almost a whole day just watching. In Keefe’s opinion, it was kind of creepy but it was probably something sentimental to her. It had been a year since then and everything was covered in a thick layer of dust. 

They set to work, setting up, connecting cables, dusting (not something Keefe thought this would entail). Their list was made quick work of and soon they were all set up and staring at the screens. People moved like nothing was going to happen, they moved in a trance of things to do and places to be and not a care for the world around them. Keefe remembered a long time ago, Alden saying that elves loved their work, but as he watched people go they didn’t all seem to love it. Their lives were a dull continuous day after day after day with nothing to want and nothing different. Keefe grinned, oh how they would change that. They all held separate controllers, all for different things.

With a nod, Marella started to count down. “Three. Two. One.” She pressed her button and the disks went off. Pink goop (Keefe got the idea from bubble gum, something he had been a tad bit addicted to in his time away) covered everywhere. Luckily, the cameras were high enough that their view wasn’t blocked, because the view from above was amazing. People shouted and left their shops, watching as the mass overtook everywhere. No one was actually in danger, anyone stuck would be just a tad bit uncomfortable but still safe. Dex let out a breathless laugh, “It worked, oh my Ancients it worked!" 

Marella let out a whoop and he couldn’t help but be caught in the crashing wave of her joy. But they weren’t done yet; there was still more to do.

They waited in anxious excitement for the panic to die down before they could release Wave 2. Finally, it was time and Keefe pushed his remote to see glitter fill the air and Biana’s infamous quote light the sky. ”' Sparkles make everything better,’“ Keefe said as he watched the shimmering rain. "That they do, that they do.”

Dex giggled as he pushed his button, releasing the KMD. Keefe was fairly proud of his odd combination of their initials, but it worked well. Keefe’s pink faded into Marella’s orange into Dex’s green in a shimmering rain that morphed into “The Outsiders”, as Dex had called them the night before. 

Keefe swelled with pride, “Now that is something sixteen-year-old me would be hella proud of.”

Marella nodded, “We did something amazing here today, boys.”

“That we did." 

That afternoon, moments before sunset, Dex, Marella, Keefe, Biana, and Elwin stood on the hill behind Elwin’s house. No one knew what to say, no one knew where to start. Honestly, Keefe thought that the only thing keeping Elwin from crying was his silence.

"Really,” Biana spoke startling them all. “You had to use the 'Sparkles make everything better'?”

Marella barked out a laugh. “Hey, we knew it would get your attention,” Dex said.

Biana raised her eyebrow, “Oh, really? Because the giant blob of pink goop in my office and everywhere else wouldn’t?”

“Wellll- it was a fun addition,” Keefe said.

Biana smiled softly, “I’m going to miss you guys.” Keefe couldn’t stop himself anymore and he pulled her into a hug.

“We’ll be back. I promise.”

“You better be, asshole; I can’t fix everything on my own,” Biana whispered into his shoulder.

“And you don’t have to,” Keefe whispered back. If anything, he wanted her to know that before they left. She nodded slowly. 

Keefe felt Dex and Marella join the hug, and eventually so did Elwin and it felt so final that Keefe had to remind himself again and again that it wasn’t; that he’d be back. 

Finally, they pull away, everyone with teary eyes. “If any one of you gets hurt you are calling me immediately, got it?” Elwin stated, point his finger at them.

Dex snorted, “I don’t think it works like that.”

“I do not care, I am not letting anyone of you get hurt by that place,” Elwin said, almost glaring at them. “Are you kidding? The amount of work I’m going to have to go through, detoxing you after you’re exposed to all those-” he waved his hands excessively, “pollutions!”

“Yes sir,” Keefe said as he mock-soluted him.

“We should probably get going,” Marella elbowed him, checking her watch. “Bi? Watch my mom, will you?”

Biana smiled, “Of course.”

Dex gulped, “And watch the triplets for me? And Elwin, talk to my parents? They’ll be mad I didn’t tell them but I just couldn’t say goodbye to them.”

Elwin and Biana nodded. Keefe raised his leaping crystal, “I love you guys.” The beam opened up and before he could bite his tongue, “I love you, Dad.” He stepped through, not even looking to see Elwin’s response.

Marella and Dex met him on the other side, both giving him quizzical looks. “You really just called him Dad for the first time and then ran away for who knows how long?” Dex asked.

“Yup!”

“I thought that impulsive phase was over,” Marella said.

“I'm sorry what have the past two days been?" 

"We don’t talk about that." 

Keefe grinned, "Okay Techmaster, lead the way.” And they were off a clean slate, a fresh beginning.

They had rigged up a computer, a shitty web camera, and a stand duct-taped together in the middle of their small Sydney apartment. Dex stood behind, still messing with the settings as Keefe was trying to fix the crappy white sheet they had hung behind them. “I think it’s fine,” Marella chuckled.

* * *

“Oh suree tell the guy who actually can speak to the tech how it works,” Dex said, rolling his eyes and pressing a few more buttons. Marella moved her fingers around her temple and mouthed, “Crazy” and Keefe found that he couldn’t stop himself from snorting. 

“You know I can see you right.”

“Yup!” Marella and Keefe said in unison, giving in to another round of giggles.

Dex shook his head, “Well, we’re all set up.” For a millisecond Keefe could tell just how nervous Marella was in the way that her eyes darted, trying to make sure everything was holding steady, how her hands silently snapped to some imaginary song. It came off her in waves, though her excitement accompanied it. 

“Okay, you guys ready?” Dex asked. 

Keefe nodded. “Okay, three,” Dex held up three fingers. Two. One. He pointed at them. 

The first round ended prematurely in a fit of giggles. The second with Marella staring blankly, the third with Keefe singing some random song he had heard on the radio because who knew what he was supposed to say? Certainly not him!

It took more tries than Keefe could count and well after the sun went down before they _finally_ had an acceptable intro (they also managed to drag Dex into the actual camera view which was secretly Marella and Keefe’s main goal). 

It took only two days to edit on top of the jobs that they had managed to find. Eventually, they were all standing in front of the computer anxiously watching Dex press the upload button.

“You know,” Dex said, “it’s not going to make any difference with you standing right there.”

“We are witnessing history in the making; we cannot miss out on that!” Keefe yelled dramatically, met with an exaggerated eye roll. 

It all seemed too simple to be called a beginning, just a click of a button, and they were alive somewhere among the firing code in this vast world.

They were all lounging on the couch when it came. The doorbell rang, and no one moved, except the cat. Dex was too wrapped in his current school project that had to do with writing something that was way above Keefe’s amount of brain cell. Curled on the couch, Marella had her headphones in, editing their newest video that had them trying to paint a posing Dex with their fingers. This ended into chaos which was a surprise to no one. Keefe grinned at the memory as he tried to lure out their new cat that had decide to bolt under the sofa the moment the bell rang. “Come here Marty Jr.,” Keefe cooed.

Marella pulled out one earbud, “Did we really have to name her Marty Jr.?”

“If I recall correctly you didn’t have a better idea at the time,” Keefe retorted.

“I did!” Dex called.

“For the last time, we are not naming her after some weird chemical!”

“Pneumonia is a perfectly reasonable name!”

“Wait,” Marella said, “isn’t that a lung disease?”

“I thought it was some poisonous gas thing?” Keefe said. 

Dex groaned, “Why must I be the only intelligent person here?”

“Look is someone going to get the door? It could be pizza,” Marella said. Keefe groaned and gave up trying to get the cat out from under the couch, going to answer the door. 

No one was outside on the balcony, no one was in the courtyard except for the neighbor's kids. But there was pizza on the ground, still in the box, and it smelt like heaven. On top of the box was an envelop. “Did either of you order a mysterious pizza and a suspicious-looking envelope?” Keefe called out, carrying the box into the house.

“No?” Dex said, his face twisted in confusion. 

“Well, looks like we got a surprise then.”

Marella came up behind him, Marty Jr. sitting comfortably in her arms, “What’s in the envelope?”

“Just a letter,” Keefe said. It was a letter, but when he unfolded it, it held a handwriting he would never mistake. Biana’s. “What the-” Keefe started but Marella snatched the paper out of his hands. 

“She wants to meet us,” Marella whispered. 

“Where?" 

"In some cabin in the US.”

Keefe groaned, “Crap, we don’t have that kinda money without it being sponsored.”

Dex grinned holding up the discarded envelope, “She already thought of that.” He pulled out three plane tickets. 

Keefe grinned, “Well, I guess we’re going to America.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)

**Author's Note:**

> I’ll try to update this once a week at best and I’m really excited about getting this story out! (Go find me on tumblr for sneak peaks and faster updates @a-lonely-tatertot)


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